Pope Leo says existential concerns about AI ‘should be taken seriously’

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ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE (RNS) — Pope Leo XIV said growing concerns from technology experts regarding artificial intelligence “should be taken seriously,” and called for more dialogue and cooperation between scientists, politicians and society at large to address challenges the technology may pose for humanity in the future.

“To simply say, ‘Oh it’s not going to happen,’ and close our eyes to it, I think it’s probably not the most responsible way to go about it,” the pope said, referring to AI risks. He was answering questions from journalists on the papal plane returning to Rome on Monday (Sept. 28) from his four-day trip to France.

Ahead of a Sunday (Sept. 27) dinner with Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, the tech company that makes the Claude chatbot, U.S. President Donald Trump told journalists he was not worried by the potential dangers of AI. Amodei has called for regulation of the technology.

This past weekend, Chinese and U.S. officials agreed to a proposed joint channel for handling AI cyberattacks and uncontrollable AI agents.

Researchers from frontier AI labs have increasingly…