Pope Leo XIV Laughs As AI “Forgets” He Is the Pontiff

Whilst His Holiness was amused, it's no laughing matter. AI makes mistakes all the time. It's the GIGO principle: Garbage in, garbage out.

From Aleteia

By Cyprien Viet

While eating with Spanish bishops, Pope Leo XIV shared a humorous story about asking AI for speech ideas, only for it to address his predecessor, Pope Francis.

Exactly two weeks to the day after the publication of his encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, which highlighted the opportunities and risks of artificial intelligence, Pope Leo XIV took advantage of his trip to Madrid, Spain, to provide quite an insightful -- if humorous -- example of its dangers. The moment was not recorded and wasn’t part of the Pope's official speeches. However, it was recounted by Yago de la Cierva, a Spanish academic and member of the papal visit's organizing committee, who attended the Pontiff’s lunch with the Spanish bishops.

The Pope, laughing and relaxed as he has generally been for the whole of this historic tour in Spain, recounted that before leaving on his trip, he consulted AI out of curiosity. He asked it, “What should the pope say to the Spanish bishops?” The artificial intelligence chat bot replied, “Pope Francis would say…” So, he interrupted it and said, “Ah, but I think there is another pope now.” The AI then replied, “Oh, that’s true, sorry, it’s now Pope Leo.”

Users have often noted ChatGPT’s limitations in tracking the latest papal news, but Pope Leo XIV himself was able to see firsthand that AI large language models struggle to integrate him into their systems. Without taking personal offense, Pope Leo XIV — the actual reigning, living pope — drew an edifying conclusion. He told the bishops, “We, on the other hand, have another algorithm. And this other algorithm leads us to love people, to accompany people, to make ourselves servants of the Word.”

Witnessing to Christ in the digital sphere

These remarks, delivered with a mix of lightness and depth, echoed the themes of his encyclical and many of his recent speeches. On Saturday evening, before 600,000 young people gathered in Plaza de Lima in central Madrid, the Pope urged them to become disciples of Christ in the digital sphere as well as in real relationships. “Seeing you, dear young people, filled with this enthusiasm that comes from faith, I have high hopes for your ability to bear witness to Christ in the world — including the realm of digital media — and to communicate the values and beauty of the Gospel,” Pope Leo XIV said.

A vital need for meaning and human relationships

Speaking a few hours after the event, Esteban, a young Spaniard who happens to be studying AI, admitted that he had not yet read the encyclical (Spaniards are in the most demanding weeks of the academic year as they face their final exams), but that Pope Leo XIV’s reflections made him want to. “The Pope's words match my philosophy of life. I believe artificial intelligence is a wonderful tool in our professional lives, and we must learn to use it well, but it absolutely must not replace friendship and human relationships,” the young man said.

For the Pope, maintaining a healthy relationship with AI is the main civilizational challenge of our time. Technological development must be accompanied by perspectives of meaning. “Our society does indeed possess an extraordinary capacity to produce, innovate and communicate,” he noted Sunday evening during his meeting with the cultural, sports, and economic sectors at the Movistar Arena in Madrid.

“However, it seems we still need to learn how to safeguard the soul of what it generates. Otherwise, we run the risk of becoming experts in the media and effective producers, yet uncertain as to why, for what purpose, with whom and for whom we produce,” he pointed out.

It’s a way of laying new milestones in a pontificate that isn’t oriented toward rejecting technology, but rather focused on reconciling science and conscience to avoid the ruin of the soul.