In his message for the 60th World Communications Day, Pope Leo XIV offers a stark warning: AI and digital technologies are reshaping human communication, creativity and identity. Source: OSV News.
And the greatest risks, the Pope said, are not technical but deeply human.
While the 60th World Communications Day will be observed on May 17, the text was published on January 24 on the feast of St Francis de Sales, patron saint of the Catholic press.
If we fail in safeguarding and educating on how to use it, digital technology, Pope Leo said, “risks radically modifying some of the fundamental pillars of human civilisation, which we sometimes take for granted.”
By “simulating human voices and faces, wisdom and knowledge, awareness and responsibility, empathy and friendship, systems known as artificial intelligence not only interfere with information ecosystems, but also invade the deepest level of communication, that of relationships between human persons.”
The challenge, therefore, the Pontiff said, “is not technological, but anthropological. Safeguarding faces and voices ultimately means safeguarding ourselves.”
Pope Leo challenged AI with what technology cannot replace: a human face and a human voice, stressing that they matter.
“They are described as unique expressions of a person’s identity and the foundation of genuine human encounter,” the Pope said.
“They express one’s unrepeatable identity and are the constitutive element of every encounter,” Pope Leo said, adding that “face and voice are sacred” and were “given to us by God, who created us in his image and likeness, calling us to life with the Word that He himself addressed to us”.
God’s Word “first resounded through the centuries in the voices of the prophets and then became flesh in the fullness of time,” the Pontiff reminded.
God “impressed upon the human face a reflection of divine love, so that humanity might fully live its own humanity through love,” Pope Leo said.
Therefore, “to safeguard human faces and voices” means to “safeguard this seal, this indelible reflection of God’s love. We are not a species made up of biochemical algorithms, defined in advance. Each of us has an irreplaceable and inimitable vocation that emerges through life and is manifested precisely in communication with others.”
Pope Leo, in his message, challenged humanity addicted to social media and driven by algorithms to not give up one’s own thinking, empowering humans instead to use technology in order to assist, not drive, human life.
FULL STORY
Pope Leo gives programmatic message on AI in first World Communications Day message (By Paulina Guzik, OSV News)
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