Pope Leo XIV has called for a clear distinction between human-made art and AI-generated content, saying algorithms “lack the spark of humanity” and urging the Catholic Church to strengthen its ties with artists.
In a post on X on Friday from his @Pontifex account, the pontiff said the distinction was becoming pressing.
"In this era of artificial intelligence, it is becoming urgent to distinguish human art from what machines produce," he wrote.
He described the difference as one of kind rather than quality. "There is an ontological difference, even before an aesthetic one, between art and what a machine can generate through statistical calculation based on millions of images created by others," Pope Leo said. In other words, he argued, the gap lies in what the work is, not merely in how it looks.
The post ended with an appeal to the creative world. "For this reason, the Church wishes to renew an alliance with artists and cultural institutions to safeguard our humanity," he wrote. The message drew over 15.7 million views, along with more than 3.29 lakh likes and 64,000 reposts, within hours.
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The remarks come as AI image, music and video tools raise unresolved questions over originality and the use of artists' work as training material. The pope's reference to images "created by others" points to that concern, as generative models learn from vast collections of existing human work.
AI has been a defining theme of Pope Leo's papacy. The first American pontiff, elected in May 2025, said two days after his election that the Church offered its social teaching in response to "another industrial revolution" and to AI developments that "pose new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice and labour".
He is understood to have chosen his name in continuity with Leo XIII, whose 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum addressed the first Industrial Revolution.
In May this year, he signed his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, on safeguarding the human person in the age of artificial intelligence. It was signed on May 15, the 135th anniversary of Rerum Novarum, and presented on May 25. The Vatican has also set up an interdicasterial commission on AI.
Pope Leo has previously urged priests not to use AI to prepare homilies. He has also advised young people to use the technology in a way that, if it vanished tomorrow, they would still know how to think, create and act on their own.
Friday's post extends that line of argument from the pulpit and the workplace to the studio and the gallery.
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