Fr. Paolo Benanti Opposes Superintelligence Development as Vatican Teaching Expands to AGI Risks
Updated
Updated · Compact Mag · May 18
Fr. Paolo Benanti Opposes Superintelligence Development as Vatican Teaching Expands to AGI Risks
1 articles · Updated · Compact Mag · May 18
Fr. Paolo Benanti, Pope Francis’s AI adviser, has made clear he believes humanity should not proceed with building superintelligence.
The stance comes as Vatican teaching begins to address advanced AI more directly: the recent document Quo Vadis, Humanitas? gave Magisterial teaching its first substantial discussion of AGI and warned it could escape human control.
Benanti’s position aligns with broader Church concerns that AI is already supplanting human agency, from lethal autonomous weapons to chatbots linked to psychosis and suicide.
Pope Leo XIV’s expected first encyclical is now seen as a possible vehicle for turning those concerns into a wider moral and practical framework for AI regulation, much as past Vatican interventions helped stigmatize human cloning.
With AI-linked deaths already a reality, is the Pope's warning on machine intelligence coming too late?
As the Vatican declares war on super-AI, can moral authority defeat the world's most powerful corporations?
The Vatican’s 2025 AI Directives: "Antiqua et Nova," Papal Warnings, and a Call for Global Ethical Governance
Overview
In January 2025, the Vatican deepened its engagement with artificial intelligence by releasing the document *Antiqua et Nova*, a comprehensive reflection on the relationship between AI and human intelligence. Issued by Vatican dicasteries, this Note examines the profound anthropological and ethical challenges posed by AI, warning against the risk of creating a substitute for God. The document highlights AI’s dual nature, stressing that it can be used for good or ill, and calls for careful moral evaluation and collective responsibility. These directives mark a significant step in shaping global dialogue on AI’s impact on human dignity and society.