Build an angel, not a demigod; The Washington Post, June 16, 2026

 Bill Drexel, The Washington Post ; Build an angel, not a demigod

Religious commitment is good at shaping behavior. That should interest AI labs.

"Recent attention from religious authorities toward AI, such as Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical, is a welcome development for the trajectory of this technology. But the more necessary step is for the engineers to return the favor — to be more honest about the religious shape of their own anxieties, not least to themselves, and the advantages that religious inspiration might provide to address their fears.

Were they more open to it, these labs might even recognize that theology offers them a better goal: developing an angel, superior to humans in intelligence and power but sent to serve them. Instead of raising a demigod, might they not try to engineer a Gabriel?"

Pope: Intelligence is seeking life's true meaning, not having reams of data; United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, June 20, 2025

 Carol Glatz , United States Conference of Catholic Bishops; Pope: Intelligence is seeking life's true meaning, not having reams of data

"Access to vast amounts of data and information is not the same thing as having intelligence, which is uniquely human and requires being open to truth, goodness and the real meaning of life, Pope Leo XIV told AI experts and executives.

"Authentic wisdom has more to do with recognizing the true meaning of life than with the availability of data," he said in a written message released by the Vatican June 20.

"Acknowledging and respecting what is uniquely characteristic of the human person is essential to the discussion of any adequate ethical framework for the governance of AI," he wrote.

The message, written in English, was addressed to people attending the second annual Rome conference on AI, Ethics and the Future of Corporate Governance being held in Rome and at the Vatican June 19-20.

The conference "brings together executives from leading AI companies as well as large enterprises using AI with policymakers, scholars, ethicists and lawyers to consider in a holistic way the challenges facing the ethics and governance of AI, both for companies developing this revolutionary technology as well as the enterprises incorporating AI into their businesses," according to the event's website."