DN Opinion
Humanity and algorithms: Leo XIV’s warning to the world
Victor Ângelo
International Security Advisor. Former Under-Secretary-General/Special Representative of the United Nations
Published on: 29 May 2026
In publishing his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo XIV has delivered far more than a mere pastoral document. He has provided a formidable diagnosis of the nature of power in the contemporary era. I view the text as a crucial geopolitical manifesto concerning what is arguably the greatest source of power and conflict in the 21st century: Artificial Intelligence (AI).
The encyclical moves well beyond the traditional critique of States, pointing the finger at tech conglomerates as bona fide political and military actors. Armed with vast financial resources, advanced research capabilities, and extraordinary political clout, these corporations now dictate strategic priorities that supersede the decision-making capacity of governments themselves. Furthermore, they do so entirely beyond the reach of democratic scrutiny.
The Pope is unequivocal in his warnings. AI is undermining public opinion through global-scale disinformation and hollowing out our humanity as we delegate moral decisions to machines. Worse still, with the proliferation of Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS), AI threatens the very logic of warfare—a concept that is already, in most instances, an ethical contradiction. One need only look to the tragedy of Minab, in southern Iran. On the 28th of February, an autonomous target-selection system "decided" to kill 156 people in a primary school. This serves as yet another proof of the peril and fallibility of these systems. The alibis for such errors? Outdated databases, models skewed by inherent biases, and a bizarre inability to read the context on the ground. There are numerous examples where alleged "surgical precision" has proven to be nothing more than indiscriminate carnage.
There is an operational detail that has not escaped the Vatican’s notice. These platforms operate at a velocity that simply deprives military personnel of the time required to evaluate targets. Operators risk becoming mere formal validators. In other words, the roles are reversed: machines become the decision-makers, and humans are reduced to mere automatons who click "yes" to approve a choice made by an algorithm. This dizzying speed effectively eradicates the moral responsibility of the commander. What International Law would classify as an undeniable war crime—in Minab, Beirut, Gaza, Kyiv, and beyond—is cynically filed away as a "programming error". The Pope asserts that, with the theory of the "just war" now obsolete, there remains only a highly restricted right to legitimate defence, governed by ethical proportionality and responsible human decision-making.
In light of this, and because the encyclical underscores the centrality of peace within the UN, I reiterate a proposal I make frequently: the urgent need for a profound revision of the Charter of the United Nations. The updated version must explicitly mention these new existential threats and adopt a new binding principle that makes international solidarity mandatory. To wit: technological advancement must serve human progress.
On the day following the publication of the encyclical, an interesting coincidence occurred: the UN Security Council convened to debate various topics, among them the governance of AI. In his address, António Guterres emphasized that new technologies are advancing more rapidly than our capacity to manage them, which creates additional and as yet unknown risks to international peace. However, the tone of the meeting—convened and chaired by Wang Yi, Xi Jinping’s right-hand man—was altogether different.
Wang announced the creation of the "World AI Cooperation Organization" (WAICO), to be headquartered in Shanghai. The official justification put forward by China appears attractive and is an easy sell: to strengthen multilateralism. The reality, however, is quite different. It is an attempt to create a direct counterweight to Western digital power. In truth, it is but another step in Beijing's strategy to dominate the new world order.
Thus, two diametrically opposed visions stand face to face. From Beijing's perspective, the future is built by relentlessly reinforcing the power of the State. For those who share Leo XIV’s thinking, the focus is the very survival of the human condition. For those who support the multilateral system, the issue is no longer debating which of these visions is correct. It is attempting to discern how our fragile global institutions will survive the head-on collision between the imperatives of power and the imperatives of humanity.
It all comes down to how we define sovereignty. China maintains a strictly Westphalian view: the State as the ultimate sovereign authority. Yet, we must note that this is not exclusively Chinese. Beijing's geopolitical realism is the exact mirror image of current doctrine in the White House and the Kremlin. Whether it is Russia's "indivisible security", the hypernationalism of the Trump Administration, Xi Jinping's state control, or Netanyahu's securitized expansionism, the premise remains the same. All of them reduce AI to a mere tool for military purposes, espionage, counter-espionage, and control. They harbour the illusion that the advancement of algorithms generates equilibrium and security. History proves precisely the opposite. Realism stripped of values does not guarantee stability. It has invariably led to dictatorship, confrontation, and war.
Against this folly, Leo XIV counters with an unambiguous defence of humanism. This is not pacifist naivety or spiritual utopianism. It is the pragmatic conviction that the international architecture must be shaped to preserve life, rather than to feed a roboticized Darwinism among superpowers and other warmongering States.
This is why I believe the true impact of Magnifica Humanitas will be felt outside the traditional axis of international power. In the Global South, the text will serve as a valuable manifesto against digital colonialism. Even in non-Christian societies—in the Islamic world or across Asia—the universal focus on human dignity, devoid of theological dogma, provides a highly relevant platform for convergence. Leo XIV has issued a clear warning: global governance will only succeed if it is born of a dialogue that protects Humanity from its own technological dehumanization.
