Pope Leo’s first AI encyclical to be unveiled with Anthropic co-founder

TL;DR:

• The Vatican has confirmed that Pope Leo XIV will unveil his first encyclical, titled “Magnifica Humanitas” (Magnificent Humanity), on 25 May — focused on “the protection of the human person in the age of artificial intelligence.”
• Anthropic co-founder Christopher Olah will speak at the Vatican presentation alongside theologians Anna Rowlands and Léocadie Lushombo — a notable break from the usual cardinal-led launch format.
• The encyclical was signed on 15 May, exactly 135 years after Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum on the Industrial Revolution and workers’ rights.

The Vatican announcement, reported in The Guardian and confirmed by Reuters, formalises the date and form of what will be Pope Leo’s first major doctrinal text. The choice of subject — AI — and the choice of speaker — an Anthropic co-founder — together signal that the Church intends to position itself as a substantive interlocutor in AI ethics rather than an outside commentator.

The encyclical is expected to address AI’s impact on workers’ rights and decry its use in warfare. Both themes were rehearsed in a recent papal speech that cited conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon and Iran as showing “the inhumane evolution of the relationship between war and new technologies in a spiral of annihilation.”

The Anthropic connection, and what it signals

Christopher Olah’s appearance is unusual on multiple counts. Popes traditionally do not present their own encyclicals — that task falls to cardinals. Inviting a frontier-AI-lab co-founder as a lay speaker is a deliberate signal: the Vatican is willing to engage directly with the firms building the technology, not just react to it. Anthropic itself is currently in a high-profile dispute with the Trump administration over the ethical guardrails it insists on for its models, including restrictions on military targeting and domestic surveillance applications.

The encyclical follows Pope Leo’s recent launch of a Vatican AI commission — reported in our 18 May coverage — and builds on a multi-year Vatican engagement with major technology firms including Microsoft and Google. Christopher White of Georgetown’s Initiative on Catholic Social Thought told The Guardian the document is likely to combine “caution that as technology advances, the human person should be kept at the centre” with calls for “stringent regulation and a ban on lethal autonomous weapons.”

Looking forward

For UK and European AI policy circles, the encyclical is more than a religious statement. Encyclicals are read carefully by Catholic-affiliated institutions, including universities, hospital systems and labour-aligned political parties — including in Italy, Spain, Poland and Ireland. A Vatican text that explicitly endorses regulation of AI-in-warfare and protections for AI-displaced workers will be quoted in EU debates over the next several years. The 135-year anniversary framing — Rerum Novarum in 1891 addressed workers’ rights during the Industrial Revolution — makes clear that Pope Leo intends “Magnifica Humanitas” to play a comparable role for the AI era. The 25 May presentation, and the choice to put a lay AI-lab figure on the stage, suggests the document will be aimed as much at industry as at the faithful.