"Algorithms lack the spark": Pope Leo XIV calls on church to ally with artists against AI

• The statement comes after the New York Times reported on Anthropic's efforts to confer with religious scholars to infuse religious morals into Claude.

What he's saying: "In this era of artificial intelligence, it is becoming urgent to distinguish human art from what machines produce," the pope wrote on X.

• "There is an ontological difference, even before an aesthetic one, between art and what a machine can generate through statistical calculation based on millions of images created by others. Algorithms lack the spark of humanity."
• Leo said the Catholic Church is calling for "an alliance with artists and cultural institutions to safeguard our humanity."

Zoom out: Leo has spoken out against AI before, specifically around how the technology could influence and potentially harm humanity.

• In the first encyclical of his papacy, he said there was a need to "disarm" the technology to prevent it "from dominating humanity."
• In May, the pope established a Vatican commission on AI to coordinate the church's policies and work around the technology.

Last week, he warned of a "paradise of machines" invading and taking over our daily activities. He also said that recent warnings from AI researchers should be "taken seriously."

• "We have to keep working. We can't sit back and pretend nothing is going to happen," he told reporters in late September.

Flashback: The late Pope Francis also warned that AI potentially risked reducing humans into data points.