New Polity Pope Leo XIV on AI Chatbots: Preserving Human Voices and Faces
Feb 3, 2026
Reuben Slife, a careful reader of papal teaching and commentator on tech and Catholic thought, joins to unpack Pope Leo XIV's message on AI. They probe faces and voices as sacred, worry about deepfakes and chatbots simulating relationships, and debate threats to creativity, memory, and civic trust. Short reflections on responsibility, education, and preserving human presence round out the conversation.
AI Snips
Chapters
Books
Transcript
Episode notes
Face And Voice As Core Personhood
- Pope Leo XIV frames the face and voice as the primary, embodied signs of individual personhood and relational presence.
- This anchors the Vatican's AI critique in anthropology, not just technology.
AI Is An Anthropological Challenge
- The Pope warns AI simulates faces, voices, wisdom, and empathy, encroaching on human relationships.
- He casts the problem as anthropological: it needs human and cultural responses, not only technical fixes.
Masterpieces Reduced To Training Data
- AI-generated creative outputs risk turning people into passive consumers of 'unthought thoughts' and anonymous products.
- Masterpieces may be treated as mere training data, eroding reverence and creation.
