Pope Leo says AI lacks the "spark of humanity" — and wants artists and the church to fight back

AxiosOctober 2, 2026en

Pope Leo XIV called Friday for the church to form an alliance with artists to protect human creativity during an era of AI-generated content. Why it matters: Though he has acknowledged the technology's potential benefits, the pope continues to warn that AI progress cannot come at the expense of human dignity. The statement comes after the New York Times reported on Anthropic's efforts to confer with religious scholars to infuse religious morals into Claude. What he's saying: "In this era of artificial intelligence, it is becoming urgent to distinguish human art from what machines produce," the pope wrote on X. "There is an ontological difference, even before an aesthetic one, between art and

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