POPE Leo XIV’s first encyclical raises the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) to intensify exploitation and reduce workers to “cogs in a system.”

Magnifica Humanitas (“magnificent humanity”), presented by the Pope yesterday at a press conference in Rome, compares the overreach by Big Tech to the biblical Tower of Babel narrative.

Its development should not be left to those who own the means of production, he cautioned: “It’s not enough to invoke ethics in a generic way: we need adequate legal frameworks, independent oversight, user education, and a policy that doesn’t abdicate its mandate. Otherwise, change will be governed solely by technocratic logic and presented as necessary and inevitable, ultimately imposing rules dictated by those who own data, infrastructure, and computing power.”

The head of the Roman Catholic Church also decried the huge environmental cost of data centres built to power AI, largely ignored by governments in planning processes.