Pope Leo XIV Criticises Tech Firms' Ambition to Dominate AI Amid Mass Layoffs

The leader of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Leo XIV, has criticised various actors, including technology firms, for their ambition to dominate artificial intelligence (AI) technology. He stated that this ambition stems from a desire to secure business or geopolitical interests, describing the drive to dominate AI as a ‘weapon’ that could harm humanity and must be disarmed. The criticism was issued in a pastoral message or encyclical titled ‘Magnifica Humanitas’, published on Monday (25 May 2026), amid worsening conditions for workers in the technology sector. Recently, tens of thousands of technology sector employees worldwide have faced job cuts, driven by companies’ ambitions to lead in AI development. In the 42,000-word encyclical, which broadly addresses humanity in the AI era, Pope Leo XIV highlighted concerning ideas and practices by various actors in AI development. He believes AI cannot be viewed merely as a tool; behind it lies underlying ideologies. Modern technologies like AI are dominated by technocratic ideas prioritising efficiency, control, and profit alone. According to Pope Leo XIV, this dominant ideology sacrifices human dignity in pursuit of greater efficiency. ‘When technology becomes the standard for evaluating everything, it begins to dictate what is important and what can be discarded, reducing creation to objects of exploitation and humans to mere cogs in a system driven by ever-increasing efficiency,’ the Pope wrote. Beyond problematic ideologies, Pope Leo XIV also highlighted the concentration of technological control in the hands of a few economic and tech entities, stating this dominance would only harm humanity. ‘In many digital contexts, control over platforms, infrastructure, data, and computing power lies not with states but with major economic and tech actors,’ the Pope said. ‘When power is concentrated in a few hands, it tends to be opaque and evade public scrutiny, increasing the risk of skewed development that fosters dependency, exclusion, manipulation, and new inequalities,’ he added. Many tech firms are striving to dominate AI, pouring vast resources into AI infrastructure, yet workers bear the brunt of this ambition. For instance, on 20 May 2026, Meta (parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram) laid off approximately 8,000 global employees, while simultaneously increasing AI investments by hundreds of billions. This year, Meta has committed over $100 billion (approximately £81.5 billion) to AI investment, with total capital expenditure projected at $125-145 billion (approximately £102-118 billion).