Where this was said
Pope Leo XIV's AI Encyclical: A Moral Reckoning
At 42:50 · chapter starts 34:23
Tommy walks through the highlights of a genuinely remarkable document: the Pope's insistence that AI is not alive, does not have a conscience, and cannot bear moral responsibility; his expansive definition of 'disarming' AI to include economic and cognitive competition, not just military applications; his warning that AI lowers the threshold for violence by making war faster and more impersonal; and his call for shared global ethical standards backed by social justice frameworks. The encyclical drops the same week as Anthropic's fight with the Pentagon over military use, and the same week the Trump administration apparently considered an AI executive order before industry lobbyists got it killed. Ben connects this to the broader collapse of international governance: in normal times, AI would be the subject of UN summits and global standards processes. Instead, JD Vance is lecturing the world against slowing down, and the US — home to most of the major AI companies — is the least helpful actor in the conversation. The Pope, Ben argues, stepped into a vacuum no one else would fill, and the public appetite for moral leadership on AI is enormous. The segment closes with both hosts calling for Democrats to get where the Pope is on this issue.
Pope Leo XIV released a 42,300-word encyclical on AI — addressing its impact on war, democracy, labor, and human identity. The Pope's core argument: AI must be 'disarmed' not just militarily but economically and cognitively, freed from the race for dominance that is degrading humanity.
Pope Leo XIV released a 42,300-word encyclical on artificial intelligence covering ethics, war, democracy, and humanity's future.
Fifteen years ago, unregulated AI transforming warfare and democracy would have triggered global summits and UN frameworks. Today, the US is an arsonist in that conversation, JD Vance is lecturing the world against slowing down, and the only person speaking with moral authority is the Pope.
