Pope Leo XIV Warns on AI and Weakening Multilateralism in Historic UNESCO Address

Pope Leo XIV delivered a landmark address at UNESCO headquarters in Paris on Friday, becoming the first pontiff in over 40 years to visit the United Nations cultural body. He spoke before a packed plenary conference of member-state representatives, international officials, academics and civil-society figures.

The pope used the occasion to press for stronger international dialogue and cooperation, cautioning that multilateralism is weakening and that artificial intelligence poses serious risks when it develops without an ethical foundation.

"While 'intelligence' is attributed to computational systems, we struggle to recognize the inalienable dignity of human persons, whose lives are judged according to the criterion of efficiency and, when deemed no longer productive, are rejected and discarded," he said.

In his remarks, Leo XIV warned that rapid advances in computing have not been matched by a corresponding commitment to human dignity. He noted that many tasks once carried out by people have been handed to machines, and that ideas and relationships risk being impoverished by a process of dehumanization.

He also invoked the biblical image of the Tower of Babel, saying the temptation to impose a forced unity reappears today in globalization pursued without fraternity, in rapacious forms of neocolonialism and in ideological impositions. Science, he added, when reduced to a technique of power, no longer elevates the human person.

Turning to communication, the pope observed that while people and continents can now be connected instantaneously, new forms of isolation and material and spiritual poverty persist. Faster communication, he said, is not necessarily more truthful, and abundant information is not the same as wisdom. Without a shared ethical foundation, he warned, the many channels of communication risk multiplying false information and hindering dialogue rather than fostering it.

Leo XIV arrived in Paris on Friday to begin a four-day visit to France, where the Catholic Church has seen its influence on ethical issues decline under the country's strict constitutional secularism. Church bells rang across France as his charter flight landed at Orly airport, and as many as a million people are expected to turn out to see him.

The trip is the first official state visit by a pope in 18 years. Later on Friday, Leo XIV was scheduled to preside over a large youth vigil at the Paris stadium.