Pope Leo XIV warns AI and weapons risk a spiral of annihilation

Pope Leo XIV warned that investments in artificial intelligence and high-tech weapons were pushing the world into a “spiral of annihilation,” turning a university appearance in Rome into a direct challenge to the global debate over autonomous warfare.

Speaking Thursday at La Sapienza University of Rome, Europe’s largest university, Leo called for peace in the Middle East and Ukraine and said the buildup in military spending this year, especially in Europe, was coming at the expense of education and healthcare. It was the first time a pope had visited the campus since Pope Benedict XVI canceled a planned 2008 appearance after protests from faculty and students.

Leo said AI in both military and civilian settings needed tighter monitoring so it would not strip human beings of responsibility for decisions. He linked the issue to the wars in Ukraine, Gaza and the Palestinian territories, Lebanon and Iran, describing them as evidence of the “inhuman evolution” of the relationship between war and new technologies.

The pope also met some of the university’s newest students, including young Palestinians who arrived in Italy this week through a humanitarian corridor from Gaza to continue their studies. Since the Israel-Hamas war began in 2023, the Italian government and Catholic organizations have brought hundreds of Palestinians to Italy for study and medical care, a reminder that the same conflict driving weapons development is also shaping access to classrooms, hospitals and safe passage.

The warning fit a pattern that has defined Leo’s early papacy. In his first formal address to cardinals on May 10, 2025, he said the Church had to respond to a new industrial revolution and the development of AI. A Vatican note released in January 2025 went further, warning that AI could expand the instruments of war beyond human oversight and fuel a destabilizing arms race with catastrophic consequences for human rights.

Vatican reporting has also shown Leo repeatedly arguing that technology must serve the human person, not replace judgment or weaken moral accountability. He has said new generations must be helped, not hindered, by AI, and those concerns are expected to feature more fully in his first encyclical, due in the coming weeks.

At La Sapienza, Leo’s language placed a moral office squarely inside a geopolitical fight over drone warfare, automated targeting and the pace of weapons innovation. His intervention suggested that the church sees AI not as a distant ethical puzzle, but as a present policy problem where weak international rules, rising military budgets and civilian costs are already colliding.