AI content ‘lacks the spark’ of human-made art, Pope Leo says

As artificial intelligence adoption grows around the world, Pope Leo XIV says “it is becoming urgent” to distinguish anything made by machines from human art.

“In this era of artificial intelligence, it is becoming urgent to distinguish human art from what machines produce,” the Pope said in a social media post.

“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,” he said.

“Algorithms lack the spark of humanity.”

The Catholic Church “wishes to renew an alliance with artists and cultural institutions to safeguard our humanity,” he said.

In May, Leo wrote his first encyclical titled “Magnifica Humanitas” (Magnificent Humanity), calling for robust regulation of artificial intelligence and for its developers to work for the common good rather than profit.

He issued a sweeping manifesto on safeguarding humankind as the technology impacts everything from work to war.

In the text, Leo denounced the “culture of power” driving the AI race, especially in developing ever more sophisticated methods of remote warfare.

He declared that it was “not permissible” to entrust irreversible, lethal decisions to AI systems, setting up another flash point between the American pope and the Trump administration, which has worked aggressively to prohibit AI regulation.

“Artificial Intelligence now demands to be disarmed, freed from logics that turn it into an instrument of domination, exclusion and death, ″ the Pope told a special Vatican presentation of the encyclical, one of the most authoritative types of teaching documents a Pope can issue.