Pontiff says artificial intelligence must remain at service of people in first official papal visit to country in 18 years
Pope Leo has warned against losing humanity in a “paradise of machines” as he addressed global concerns over the dangers of artificial intelligence at the start of a three-day visit to France.
“If we are to avoid losing our humanity amid a paradise of machines invading and conditioning our daily lives, there is an urgent need for people to be educated in ethical discernment, capable of seeing what is morally right,” he said in a speech at the Elysée.
At a second address on Friday, the 71-year-old head of the Catholic church said that new technologies must “remain at the service of the human person rather than becoming yet another instrument of domination and injustice” in remarks to a gathering at the Paris headquarters of the UN culture and education body, Unesco.
“Every science risks losing its proper meaning when pursued without ethics,” he said. “Certain artificial systems have even been given the name of our human faculty of thought: intelligence. At the same time, however, our ideas and relationships risk being impoverished by a process of dehumanisation.”
He added: “While intelligence is attributed to computational systems, we struggle to recognise the inalienable dignity of human persons whose lives are judged according to the criterion of efficiency and when deemed no longer productive, rejected and discarded.”
Leo also criticised world leaders who disrespect the rule of law, without naming individuals. “Instead of respecting the law, those in power invoke it when it serves their interests and disregard it when it restrains them, treating even justice itself as though it were a commodity to be bought and sold,” he said.
Leo, who became pope in 2025, has been critical of the direction of global leadership in recent months. He said the world was “being ravaged by a handful of tyrants” last April.
The first official papal visit to France in 18 years comes as Emmanuel Macron’s decade in office draws to an end ahead of next spring’s French presidential election, for which the far-right, anti-immigration Marine Le Pen is polling high. Pope Francis did not make a full state visit to France during his 12-year pontificate and refused to join the inauguration of the rebuilt Notre Dame Cathedral in 2024.
After France passed legislation in June granting some adult patients the right to assisted dying, the pontiff said he was concerned by trends “that risk turning science and technology into profit-driven ventures promoting genetic manipulation, surrogacy, the trade in human organs or the possibility of arranging one’s own death.”
A moment of the three-day visit will be a giant outdoor mass on Saturday, led by the pontiff at Place de la Concorde.
The pope, whose paternal grandmother was born in France, on Friday urged Paris to remain a “tireless champion of peace” worldwide. On Monday, he will deliver a speech on European peace in the eastern city of Metz as Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine continues into its fifth year.
Leo called on the world not to become indifferent to the pain caused by “the scourge of war”.
He told Macron and other French politicians: “I urge you '… never to grow resigned to the prospect of war or to consider it ‘inevitable’.”
Leo will also visit Lourdes, a pilgrimage site for Christians worldwide, where he will privately meet seven victims of clerical sex abuse. After some survivors’ groups suggested a larger number of survivors should have been canvassed, the Catholic church said the pontiff was seeking in-depth dialogue with individuals.
France’s Catholic bishops’ conference has agreed to provide compensation after a 2021 report estimated 330,000 children were sexually abused over 70 years by priests or other church-related figures in France. The report described a “systemic” cover-up by church officials.
In recent years, further accusations have emerged, including against workers at the Catholic boarding school, Bétharram, near Lourdes.
On his flight to Paris, Pope Leo told reporters they were welcome to cover him, as he responded to the Trump administration’s attempt to bar US media from the White House and affirmed the importance of journalists covering public figures.
Asked by a CNN reporter about Donald Trump’s attempt to bar CNN and other reporters, Leo said the media were welcome on his plane. “I am very happy that here, you are all welcome,” he said.