Pope Leo warns AI could cost us 'humanity amid a paradise of machines'

Pope Leo has warned that artificial intelligence could lead humanity to lose itself "amid a paradise of machines," delivering the message in Paris during a three-day visit to France.

The pontiff made the remarks on September 25, 2026, at the start of a trip that includes stops in Paris and Metz, according to The Guardian's coverage of the visit. His Paris appearance continues a pattern of public intervention on AI that has become a defining theme of his papacy.

What the Pope said

Leo's core warning rests on a single, sharp image: a technological paradise that empties out the people it was supposedly built for. Losing "humanity amid a paradise of machines" is the phrase at the center of his address, and it frames AI not as an isolated policy question but as a civilizational risk — one that touches what it means to remain human at all.

Alongside that image, the Pope stressed the importance of retaining what he called "ethical discernment" in an age when rapidly advancing technology threatens to undermine humanity. The phrase signals his central argument: that technical progress is outpacing society's moral capacity to direct it, and that closing that gap is now urgent.

The Guardian reports that the pontiff "continues to decry the rise of AI" on his visit to France — language that reflects the sustained, repeated nature of his interventions rather than a one-off statement. This is a pope who has made AI a recurring subject of public teaching, and the Paris speech extends that campaign to one of Europe's largest countries.

Why the venue matters

The choice of France gives the speech a specific political backdrop. The visit, which spans three days and includes Paris and Metz, places the Pope's AI warnings in a country at the center of European debates over technology regulation, industrial policy, and the continent's response to American and Chinese AI development. The Guardian's live coverage of the visit situates the speech within a broader European news cycle, including Leo's engagements at Notre-Dame and in Metz.

When the head of the Catholic Church — an institution of roughly 1.4 billion members worldwide — chooses a European capital to warn about machines, the audience is not only the faithful. It is legislators, regulators, and the executives of the companies building these systems. The Vatican has no regulatory authority, but it has moral authority, platform, and a long institutional memory of engaging scientific upheaval, from earlier eras of bioethics debates to the present wave of AI.

The stakes

The Pope's intervention lands at a moment when AI capability is advancing quickly and governance frameworks are still forming. His framing — that humanity risks losing itself in a "paradise of machines" — is a challenge to a dominant industry narrative that presents AI primarily as a story of benefits, efficiency, and progress. Leo is asking the inverse question: what is progress for, and who is it erasing?

The call for "ethical discernment" is the constructive half of the warning. It implies that the path forward is not rejection of the technology but the cultivation of human judgment capable of steering it — a stance consistent with his earlier statements decrying AI's rise and its potential threat to humanity.

For AI developers and policymakers in Europe, the speech adds religious-moral weight to debates that are usually conducted in the vocabulary of benchmarks, compute budgets, and compliance regimes. The Guardian's report notes that Leo delivered the warning "at the start of three-day France visit," indicating that AI commentary will remain part of the trip's public message as he continues to Metz and other engagements.

What comes next

The Paris address is unlikely to be Leo's last word on the subject. The Guardian's live coverage of the France visit is ongoing, and the Pope's pattern of returning to AI in public appearances suggests the Vatican intends to keep pressure on governments and technology firms as the capabilities he warns about continue to advance. Whether that moral pressure translates into policy — in France, in Brussels, or beyond — will depend on institutions that hold the levers Leo does not.