Pope Leo says AI decisions affecting life require human oversight

Pope Leo XIV received participants at the Vatican Apostolic Palace on October 30, 2026.[1] The gathering was co-organized by the Pontifical Academy for Life and the Future of Life Institute, and brought international AI researchers and experts together to connect scientific expertise with ethical reflection and institutional responsibility.[2] Leo said he believed participants shared unease about AI’s development, and that while the right direction was recognized, not enough was being done to advance it.[1] He described their work as early results of a transdisciplinary approach to complex challenges.[1]

Leo said the central question should be what purpose AI serves, not only what it can do.[1] He argued that a reliable system serving people is more valuable than a powerful system whose consequences cannot be adequately foreseen or controlled.[1] He also said AI’s future is not predetermined and depends on human choices, with people responsible for guiding, changing or rejecting applications when necessary.[1] His remarks put responsibility for AI use on human decision-makers rather than treating technological development as an inevitable course.[1]

“Machines are tools, not persons,” Leo said.[1] He said AI systems do not have experiences or bodies, feel joy or pain, mature through relationships, or know love, work, friendship and responsibility from within.[1] He warned that an approach to AI could obscure human responsibility and leave people harmed by decisions confronting a faceless entity.[1] He also cautioned that placing someone on a target list or in a border-control database risks reducing that person to a data point.[1] Decisions affecting human life, freedom and the use of force, he said, must remain under effective, informed and responsible human oversight.[1]

Leo called for shared standards, independent oversight and clear accountability mechanisms so AI decisions can be examined, challenged and accompanied by remedies for harm.[1] He said effective international institutions are needed to put ethical principles into practice and safeguard the global common good.[1] His address referred to his encyclical *Magnifica Humanitas*, issued on May 15, 2026.[3] Separately, the UN’s Seventh Review Conference of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons is scheduled for November 16–20, 2026, in Geneva; states are due to decide there whether to open formal negotiations on a legally binding instrument on autonomous weapons systems.[4]