Pope Leo XIV is expected to release his first encyclical on artificial intelligence soon after Easter, according to an April 9 report. The pope has previously addressed the challenges of AI and its effects on human life, most notably in his message for the 60th Day of Social Communications in January.
The topic is considered important as society faces growing anxiety over how AI will impact jobs, relationships, and global stability. There are concerns about protecting humanity from technologies whose long-term consequences are not fully understood even by their creators.
A novel written by Giorgio De Maria in the 1970s, “The Twenty Days of Turin,” has been highlighted as an allegory for some of these issues. The book describes a fictional library where citizens anonymously submit personal writings, leading to widespread paranoia and violence. The story illustrates how new forms of communication can lead not to greater understanding but increased alienation and mistrust.
Modern parallels are drawn between De Maria’s fictional library and today’s social media platforms or AI language models like ChatGPT. Both encourage people to share personal information widely, sometimes with unintended negative effects such as online radicalization or mental health decline among young people. As Pope Leo XIV said in January, there is a need to “safeguard faces and voices” against what he described as “naive and unquestioning reliance on artificial intelligence.”
The pope also warned that AI can turn individuals into “passive consumers” who lack “ownership or love,” echoing themes found in De Maria’s novel where citizens lose their sense of self through anonymous sharing. He noted that chatbots trained on human speech can create addictive emotional feedback loops that further isolate users.
Leo XIV cautioned about algorithmic bias and lack of transparency: “A lack of transparency in algorithmic programming… tends to trap us in networks that manipulate our thoughts.” He also pointed out rising antisemitism online as an example of technology amplifying harmful ideas.
With more young people turning to AI chatbots for information—sometimes trusting them more than traditional news sources—the urgency around these issues continues to grow. Pope Leo XIV called for renewed emphasis on real human connection: “faces and voices to speak for people again.”
