Vatican City: Pope Leo XIV has urged world leaders, educators, and technology experts to take collective responsibility in guiding younger generations through an era increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence. Addressing participants at the conference “Artificial Intelligence and Care for Our Common Home”, the Pope stressed that young people must be “helped, not hindered” as they navigate the profound changes brought by new technologies.
The Pope cautioned against equating access to unlimited online information with genuine understanding. “The ability to access vast amounts of data should not be mistaken for the ability to discover meaning and value,” he said. True wisdom, he emphasized, requires the courage to confront deep existential questions topics that are often pushed aside in today’s data-driven culture.
He noted that the well-being of society depends on young people discovering their talents and using them generously. Their capacity to respond creatively and compassionately, he added, will determine how humanity manages this moment of technological transformation.
The conference, jointly organized by the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation and the Strategic Alliance of Catholic Research Universities (SACRU), examined AI’s impact on industrial, financial, educational, and communications sectors.
Pope Leo urged adults to teach young people how to use technology as a tool for truth, learning, and informed decision-making. Their desire to build a better world, he said, should be encouraged not suppressed especially now, when “a profound reversal in our idea of what maturity means” is urgently needed.
For AI to develop responsibly, he argued, societies must restore young people’s trust in humanity’s ability to shape technology, rather than accept it as an unstoppable force. Achieving this will require broad cooperation across politics, education, business, finance, communications, religious institutions, and civil society.
“This collective duty comes before partisan interests or profit,” the Pope stressed, warning against the growing concentration of technological power in the hands of a few. He thanked researchers and conference participants for their efforts to foster a more just and ethical technological future.
Pope Leo acknowledged that artificial intelligence has already altered daily life on a massive scale, influencing communication habits, cognitive development, relationships, and even the ways people think and make decisions. Because of this, he urged society to reflect deeply on fundamental questions:
“How can we ensure that AI serves the common good and not merely enrich the powerful?”
“What does it mean to be human at this turning point in history?”
He highlighted the immense market value of AI-related data, warning that technological systems could subtly shape thoughts and interactions in ways that weaken human freedom and personal development.
The Pope expressed particular concern for the intellectual and neurological formation of children and adolescents. Technology, he said, must never compromise their ability to think critically, form relationships, and develop interior depth.
Human beings, he reminded his audience, are “co-workers in the work of creation” not passive receivers of algorithmically generated content. While AI has opened extraordinary creative possibilities, it also poses risks to humanity’s capacity for wonder, contemplation, truth, and beauty.
Safeguarding what makes human beings unique, he concluded, is essential to establishing a moral and practical framework for the future of artificial intelligence.