Critics of AI-generated art have a powerful new ally: His Holiness the Bishop of Rome (Roman Bishop), Primate of Italy (primatus Italiane), and Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church (Summus Pontifex Ecclesiae Universalis).
In a post on Friday morning.Pope Leo XIV detailed the spiritual difference between human-generated art and machine-generated art, as part of a call to preserve human art from the invasion of AI.
“In this era of artificial intelligence, it becomes urgent to distinguish human art from what machines produce,” wrote the Servus Servorum Dei. “There is an ontological difference, before even an aesthetic one, between art and what a machine can generate through statistical calculation based on millions of images created by others. Algorithms lack the spark of humanity.”
Pope Leo XIV made a more detailed statement on AI in an encyclical letter in Maywhich emphasized the importance of human dignity in an increasingly automated world.
But that hasn’t stopped artificial intelligence companies from putting pressure on the pope. According a recent report from the New York TimesAnthropic has actively lobbied the Vatican to reconsider its position on non-human consciousness, apparently having little success.