The pope’s AI encyclical isn’t really about AI

The Vatican just dropped Pope Leo XIV's first encyclical, and while AI is in the title, it's really about something bigger. The document uses artificial intelligence as a way to talk about problems that have been brewing for decades: too much power in too few hands, democracy losing ground, and a small group of tech leaders building the world they want rather than the one we need.

This isn't a technical critique of large language models or computer vision. It's a diagnosis of how technology amplifies existing power imbalances. The pope is pointing at AI as the latest and most visible example of a pattern where innovation concentrates influence rather than distributing it.

For anyone working with AI tools, this matters because it names the tension you're probably feeling. You're using technology that's incredibly powerful and increasingly essential, but you didn't build it, you don't control it, and the people who do aren't necessarily thinking about your interests.

The encyclical suggests that AI isn't creating new problems so much as making old ones impossible to ignore. When algorithms shape what information you see, what jobs are available, and how decisions about your life get made, questions about who holds power stop being abstract.

This is the kind of document that won't change how AI models work, but it might change how we talk about who gets to decide what they're used for. That conversation is just getting started, and it's one that affects everyone building with or working alongside these tools.