(AFP) – US Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday praised Pope Leo XIV’s manifesto warning of the risks of artificial intelligence, calling it “profound” and a necessary act of moral leadership in a disruptive AI age. Vance has close ties to the tech industry, having worked as a venture capitalist before entering politics, and counts Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk among his most prominent backers.
In an encyclical called “Magnifica Humanitas” (Magnificent Humanity), the first US pope, who has clashed with the White House over the Iran war and its use of religion to justify conflict, set out on Monday a list of warnings about how the technology could impact humanity. Among other dangers, he said AI could lead to “new forms of slavery.”
“What I read of it sounds very profound, and the sort of thing that you would expect and hope from a leader of the church,” Vance told NBC News in an interview. “The thing about morality is that the principles never change, but the way you apply those principles does, because the world changes, right?” Vance added.
Vance and the Vatican have clashed over migration policy, with Pope Leo condemning the White House’s policy on mass deportations. The vice president, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, said he was happy that the pontiff, who is from Chicago, took the name Leo XIV when he took leadership of the Holy See last year.
“I think it was very much a nod to Leo XIII who, of course, became pope at the beginning of the Industrial Age” and similarly wrote a warning about the impact on humanity from major technological changes at the time. Leo XIV “is becoming pope at the beginning of the AI age, and I suspect that if we make it through this successfully, it will be in large part because the pope and the church are able to provide the kind of moral leadership that we need,” Vance added.
“I think we really need moral leadership to think through those questions, and that’s exactly what the church is the best leader to do,” Vance said.
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