Pope Leo XIV calls for distinguishing human art from AI: Here’s why

Pope Leo XIV has requested an increased focus on the difference between human-made art and content created by artificial intelligence, underscoring the importance of recognizing human creativity and its unique role as AI becomes more common.

During an October 2 audience with artists and curators, Pope Leo XIV emphasized a fundamental distinction between human art and machine-generated content which relies on statistical calculations from other images.

He called art a unique search image inquiry-driven reason and echoed Saint Paul VI in seeking Church partnerships to make the Gospel accessible. The Pope positioned this alliance as imperative for human security as detailed in his encyclical Magnifica Humanitas.

Pope Leo XIV stated in a post, “ In this era of artificial intelligence, it is becoming urgent to distinguish human art from what machines produce. 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. Algorithms lack the spark of humanity. For this reason, the Church wishes to renew an alliance with artists and cultural institutions to safeguard our humanity.”

The pope established a Vatican commission on AI to align the church’s policies and work with the technology. Earlier, he also warned of a paradise of machines invading and assuming control of our routines, emphasizing that recent warnings from AI researchers should be taken seriously. Furthermore, he underscored that we have to keep working as we cannot sit back and pretend nothing is going to happen.