Pope Leo XIV Calls for Global Ban on Autonomous Weapons
Pope Leo XIV urged nations to ban lethal autonomous weapons and rejected granting legal personhood to AI during a Vatican summit with international experts.
During a gathering of AI researchers and experts at the Vatican on Friday, Pope Leo XIV called for the disarmament of artificial intelligence and a global ban on lethal autonomous weapons systems. Speaking at the Apostolic Palace, the pope argued that machines are tools rather than persons and must not be granted legal personhood or rights, as doing so would obscure human responsibility and leave victims to face a faceless entity.
Leo XIV outlined five key priorities: maintaining human guidance over AI, classifying machines as tools, prohibiting the delegation of critical decisions to software, ensuring AI serves the common good, and establishing international institutions to enforce accountability. He specifically insisted that decisions regarding human life, freedom, border control, and the use of force must remain subject to informed human oversight to prevent individuals from being reduced to mere data points.
These remarks, which align with his 2026 encyclical Magnificent Humanity, precede the Seventh Review Conference of the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons scheduled for November 16-20 in Geneva. The pope encouraged participating states to take concrete steps toward a ban, joining calls from United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and the International Committee of the Red Cross for a legally binding instrument to prevent the autonomous targeting of humans.
