'Orwell foretold in 1984': How tech leaders, senators are reacting to Pope Leo's encyclical on AI

Pope Leo XIV's sweeping letter on artificial intelligence, Magnifica Humanitas, has drawn an immediate and wide-ranging response from technology investors, AI researchers, US senators and diplomats — with reactions splitting sharply between those who welcome the Vatican's moral intervention and those who question whether the Church understands the forces it is attempting to restrain.

The letter, formally titled "Magnifica humanitas: on safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence," was signed at St Peter's Basilica and addressed to the world's 1.4 billion Catholics. Within hours of its release, it had generated responses from some of the most influential figures in technology, politics and academia.

Writing on X, Sacks said the pope is right to argue that AI should be a tool that serves human beings rather than one that leads to "domination or exclusion."

But he challenged the document's broader thrust with a question that framed the response of many in the technology and libertarian policy communities: "If we hand governments sweeping power over AI development in the name of safety, how do we prevent it from being used to censor, surveil, and control citizens — as Orwell foretold in 1984?"

"This is the real alignment problem," Sacks added. "The oldest questions of human nature and authority don't disappear in the AI age. They become newly relevant."

"The Vatican and other global institutions can and must play a role in the global dialogue on AI to raise public awareness and mobilise society for the challenges ahead," Bengio wrote on X.

Bengio has been among the most prominent scientific voices calling for international coordination on AI safety, and his endorsement of the encyclical's direction is likely to carry weight in policy and research circles.

"Bad take from the Pope," Scholl wrote on X. "Tech revolutions tend to eliminate some jobs while creating others. If we cling onto jobs, we'd still be plowing fields by hand out of fear of disruption."

Scholl's response reflects a widely held view in Silicon Valley that resistance to technological change is rooted in a misunderstanding of how innovation has historically expanded human prosperity.

"Glad to see a nuanced, well-thought-out take on AI from the Catholic Church," Abraham wrote on X.

The distinction matters in the broader debate. Critics of religious interventions in technology policy sometimes assume a blanket hostility to innovation. Abraham's reading of the encyclical suggests that the Vatican's position is more carefully calibrated than that characterisation allows.

Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, a Democrat who has been among the most vocal congressional voices on AI regulation, described the pope's stance on monopolisation as "really important."

"AI threatens to undermine the basic building blocks of humanity as it seeks to replace our most basic functions, like creativity, friendship, and critical thinking," Murphy wrote on X.

The senator's response underscores the degree to which Leo XIV's framing of AI as a threat to human relationships and cognitive autonomy resonates with a strand of progressive political thought that has struggled to gain legislative traction in Washington.

Posner's assessment was measured rather than dismissive. "I appreciate this historical moment for the Vatican trying to set some guardrails for AI and Silicon Valley," he wrote on X.

He added, however, a sceptical note drawn from his reporting experience: "From all my reporting, tech is likely to rush past the generalized safety suggestions set out in this massive encyclical."

The Embassy noted that Vatican leadership "contributes meaningfully" to the broader AI conversation.

"The United States shares the Holy See's commitment to ensuring AI serves humanity and upholds fundamental values," Burch said. "The Trump Administration believes that American leadership in AI innovation is essential to our national security and economic prosperity of our people. Our approach prioritizes pro-innovation policies enabling the private sector to develop transformative AI technologies that benefit people worldwide."

Burch also said that the US aims to deploy American AI technology to build systems that "reflect democratic values rather than authoritarian control" — a remark widely read as a pointed reference to China's state-directed AI development strategy.

"A lot of folks in the media severely underestimated how much of an immediate bang Pope Leo XIV's encyclical on AI would have," Hale wrote on X.

Hale also praised the remarks of Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah, who participated in the Vatican's formal presentation of the document, calling them "refreshing." He argued that the Catholic Church “has a lot of global main character energy this morning, even among those who declared the Church dead and irrelevant not too long ago.”

Magnifica Humanitas is available in full via the Vatican's official website.