He described AI as “new industrial revolution.” However, Pope Leo XIV categorically rejected the idea of a digital twin of himself, generated by artificial intelligence (AI), which would allow the faithful to obtain an audience with him distance.
“If there is someone who should not be represented by an avatar, I would say that the Pope is at the top of the list,” he said in an interview with the journalist Elise Allen. The July 30 interview with Pope Leo is the last chapter of his biography, Leon XIV: Citizen of the World, Missionary of the 21st CenturyPosted in Spanish on September 18. The text of the interview, available in English and Spanish, has been given to Crux Catholic Media.
“Not against AI”
For the Pope, human relations remain in the heart of religion and faith. Especially because AI is often subject to hallucinations. Therefore, a Pope animated by an AI could give bad advice to the faithful.
The Pope did not stop expressing his concerns about the risks linked to AI, especially with the deep, these ultra realistic images and videos generated by AI. “There is a danger, because we end up creating a fictional world and then wonders what the truth is,” he observes. The Pope quotes, for example, a video of him generated by AI that presents him to fall into a ladder. A completely false scene.
“The danger is that the digital world continues its own path, and that we are becoming pawns, set aside,” he adds. “If we automate everyone and only a few people have the means to live with dignity, then there is a big problem.”
However, Léon XIV assures him: he “is not against AI.” “I am not absolutely against artificial intelligence. In the medical world, great things have been achieved thanks to AI, and this also in other aspects,” recalls the one that has been designated by Time magazine as one of the most influential voices in the field of artificial intelligence (AI).
Artificial intelligence has already reached certain places of worship. In December 2024, a church in Lucena (Switzerland) used a hologram to collect the confessions of his followers. Nicknamed Deus in Machina, the installation consisted of a confessional with a screen that shows a hologram of Jesus, completely created thanks to artificial intelligence. This virtual Jesus was able to answer the questions of believers in 100 different languages.
And the Catholic religion is not the only one worried. Last January, in the United States, a rabbi also tested in his synagogue the audio transmission of a sermon completely generated by artificial intelligence. AI could also answer complex theological questions.
Source: BFM TV
