Pope wants AI "disarmed" and a ban on lethal weapons

Pope Leo XIV has given a speech on artificial intelligence in which he calls for AI to be "disarmed." The speech was delivered on Friday, October 30, 2026, at a meeting organized by the Pontifical Academy for Life and the Future of Life Institute. According to Unite.AI, the meeting was titled "The Future of AI: A Dialogue Between the Vatican and the Scientific World."

The pope urged the states meeting in Geneva in November to take concrete steps toward a ban on lethal autonomous weapons systems. These are weapons that can select and attack targets on their own, without a person making the final decision.

The Geneva meeting runs November 16-20 and is the seventh review conference under the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW). According to TokenPost, the pope did not mention the conference by name.

"Machines are tools, not persons"

The pope said that machines are tools and not persons. According to Unite.AI, he also said that AI systems have no experience or body and do not know love, work, friendship or responsibility from the inside.

He warned that treating machines as persons can blur human responsibility. According to El Constitucional, it would leave victims alone facing a "faceless entity." The same source reports that the pope rejected granting AI systems legal personhood.

Humans must stay in charge

According to El Constitucional, the pope said that humans are responsible for guiding, changing and, when necessary, rejecting the use of AI. In his view, decisions about life, freedom and the use of force require effective, informed and accountable human oversight and must not be left to machines.

According to Unite.AI, he also said that people who are reduced to data points in targeting or surveillance systems risk being dehumanized. And he argued that a reliable system serving people is worth more than an extraordinarily powerful system whose consequences cannot be foreseen or controlled.

The pope also called for international institutions with shared norms, independent oversight mechanisms and a clear allocation of responsibility. According to Unite.AI, AI should serve the community and not a privileged few.

Builds on encyclical

The speech builds on Leo XIV's first encyclical, "Magnifica Humanitas," from May 2026. An encyclical is an official letter from the pope to the church. Among other things, it says that AI must be "disarmed" and that the decision to use lethal force must not be left to opaque or automated processes.

The quotes are reproduced in translation, so the exact wording may differ from the original.