Pope Leo XIV's encyclical condemns AI as 'instrument of domination'

The idea of a papal encyclical calling AI an 'instrument of domination' may be fictional, but its logic is anything but. It channels a growing unease that the AI race isn't just a technological competition — it's a contest over who gets to define what it means to be human. The real Vatican has already laid groundwork: the 2020 Rome Call for AI Ethics, signed by IBM, Microsoft, and religious leaders, proposed principles like transparency and accountability. But that document was collaborative and technocratic. The fictional encyclical goes further, framing AI not as a neutral innovation but as an extension of a 'culture of power' that excludes and dominates. It is a prophetic cry against the deregulatory momentum in the United States and the quiet surrender to market forces.

The landscape of AI ethics is already crowded but fractured. The EU AI Act provides a concrete legal mechanism, categorizing systems by risk and imposing binding requirements. The Partnership on AI relies on multi-stakeholder consensus, producing best practices that lack enforcement. Meanwhile, the global AI market is projected to exceed $1.5 trillion by 2030, according to Grand View Research. In this context, the Vatican's moral suasion is a unique lever — it reaches billions of believers and holds sway in nations where religious institutions still shape policy. However, the encyclical's confrontational tone risks polarizing an already divided ecosystem. Tech giants like Google and OpenAI have embraced the Rome Call's principles rhetorically, but the encyclical demands more: it calls for AI to be 'freed from logics of domination, exclusion, and death.' That is not a regulatory framework; it is a moral indictment.

The implications cut both ways. On one hand, the encyclical could galvanize Catholic investors and policymakers to demand stricter ethical safeguards, strengthening the hand of ethical AI startups and ESG funds. On the other hand, its lack of technical specifics leaves it open to dismissal as irrelevant by secular technologists. The hidden risk is that such strong language hardens positions rather than bridges them. The Vatican has no enforcement power; its influence relies entirely on moral suasion and grassroots activism. And in a world where AI development is driven by profit and national security, a moral critique without legislative teeth may simply be ignored — or worse, weaponized by those who see it as religious interference in secular progress. The encyclical also does not address the trade-off between safety and innovation, a gap critics will exploit.

The bottom line: this thought experiment reveals a deeper structural shift. Religious institutions, once content to issue broad ethical frameworks, are now directly confronting the power dynamics of AI. They are moving from dialogue to denunciation. Whether this escalates into a real schism between tech-friendly and tech-skeptical Catholics — or between the Vatican and Silicon Valley — depends on whether moral authority can translate into market discipline. The fiction of Pope Leo XIV may become a self-fulfilling prophecy if the real Church decides that collaboration has failed and confrontation is the only remaining option.