Tech titans mostly silent after Pope Leo’s warning on risks of AI

Pope Leo XIV’s recent encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas,” calls for more regulation of AI, stronger worker protections, and measures against fake AI information, while cautioning against autonomous weapon deployment.
The response from the tech world was largely muted but included support for stronger oversight from some leaders such as Christopher Olah, co-founder of Anthropic, and mixed reactions from other prominent figures.
Notable tech executives like Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg remained silent on the issue, and major companies including Amazon, Google, and Meta did not immediately respond.
Some tech leaders, including Yoshua Bengio and Will Jones, expressed support for the idea that AI should serve the common good and highlight the need for moral leadership in AI development.
Conversely, venture capitalists like David Sacks and Eddy Lazzarin criticized the call for government regulation, expressing concerns about censorship, lack of clear guidelines, and the theology surrounding AI.
The encyclical also sparked debate among AI researchers, with Pedro Domingos arguing that Pope Leo XIV’s views on AI were based on “ignorant and wrong-headed things” about the technology.
The Vatican’s push coincides with growing public concern about AI’s risks, with a majority of Americans in an NBC News survey viewing AI’s risks as outweighing its benefits.

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