{"id":52056,"date":"2026-05-26T23:19:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T23:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/52056\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T23:19:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T23:19:08","slug":"notre-dame-professor-breaks-down-key-takeaways-from-pope-leos-ai-warning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/52056\/","title":{"rendered":"Notre Dame professor breaks down key takeaways from Pope Leo\u2019s AI warning"},"content":{"rendered":"

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (WNDU) – Pope Leo issued a warning about the potential risks of artificial intelligence<\/a> in his first major letter as pope.<\/p>\n

Paul Scherz, a theology professor at the university, said the pope is not calling for a ban on technology but is focused on who controls it.<\/p>\n

Pope Leo released the encyclical, titled Magnifica Humanitas, on Monday. Scherz called it the church\u2019s first major statement focused on AI ethics.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an encyclical that\u2019s trying to kind of get ahead of the problem and really address it as we\u2019re designing and implementing these technologies,\u201d Scherz said.<\/p>\n

PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Notre Dame president responds to Pope Leo XIV letter on artificial intelligence<\/a><\/p>\n

Scherz said the pope\u2019s warning is less about the technology itself but more about the way it is being built and controlled. He said control of AI is concentrated in very few hands, which can leave vulnerable communities without a voice or protection.<\/p>\n

\u201cLeo has called it a second industrial revolution,\u201d Scherz said. \u201cHe argues we need to develop regulations through a broad-based method that takes all voices into account, especially those of the weak, the poor, the vulnerable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scherz said one of the pope\u2019s biggest critiques is the way global leaders talk about AI as a competition, which can push safety, ethics and human impact to the side.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the race between the U.S. and China. It\u2019s a race between technology companies designed, artificial general intelligence, right? He thinks that kind of competition language and the language of the race is really problematic because it means that we\u2019re not taking care, that we\u2019re not talking about these broader kind of issues around the vulnerable,\u201d Scherz said.<\/p>\n

The Notre Dame professor said the core message is consistent with Catholic teaching: making human dignity a priority.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s trying to give principles by which we can design policies, by which Catholics and all people of goodwill can develop new laws and regulations around these technologies,\u201d Scherz said.<\/p>\n

After Pope Leo delivered his encyclical Monday, AI company Anthropic, which is known for its chatbot Claude, asked the pope to collaborate on building a more human-centered AI tool. The pope accepted.<\/p>\n

Stay up to date on local news with WNDU<\/a> on-air and online. Be sure to download the 16 News Now App<\/a> and follow our YouTube<\/a> page as we continue to bring you the latest news coverage.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 WNDU. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SOUTH BEND, Ind. (WNDU) – Pope Leo issued a warning about the potential risks of artificial intelligence in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52057,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[6744,30746,3013,30745,30082,30743,30744,2256],"class_list":["post-52056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-agi","tag-agi","tag-ai-ethics-catholic-church","tag-artificial-general-intelligence","tag-magnifica-humanitas-explained","tag-notre-dame-artificial-intelligence","tag-notre-dame-pope-leo-ai","tag-paul-scherz-theology-professor","tag-wndu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}