Whoever becomes the next Pope will inherit not just the leadership of the Catholic Church but a remarkably sophisticated approach to technology — one that in many ways outpaces governments worldwide. While Silicon Valley preaches Artificial Intelligence as a quasi-religious force capable of saving humanity, the Vatican has been developing theological arguments to push back against this narrative.

In the hours after Pope Francis died on Easter Monday, I went, like thousands of others in Rome, straight to St Peter’s Square to witness the city in mourning as the basilica’s somber bell tolled. 

Just three days before, on Good Friday, worshippers in the eternal city proceeded, by candlelight, through the ruins of the Colosseum, as some of the Pope’s final meditations were read to them. “When technology tempts us to feel all powerful, remind us,” the leader of the service called out. “We are clay in your hands,” the crowd responded in unison.

As our world becomes ever more governed by tech, the Pope’s meditations are a reminder of our flawed, common humanity. We have built, he warned, “a world of calculation and algorithms, of cold logic and implacable interests.” These turned out to be his last public words on technology. Right until the end, he called on his followers to think hard about how we’re being captured by the technology around us. “How I would like for us to look less at screens and look each other in the eyes more!” 

Faith vs. the new religion 

Unlike politicians who often struggle to grasp AI’s technical complexity, the Vatican has leveraged its centuries of experience with faith, symbols, and power to recognize AI for what it increasingly represents: not just a tool, but a competing belief system with its own prophets, promises of salvation, and demands for devotion.

In February 2020, the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy for Life published the Rome Call for AI ethics, arguing that “AI systems must be conceived, designed and implemented to serve and protect human beings and the environment in which they live.” And in January of this year, the Vatican released a document called Antiqua et Nova – one of its most comprehensive statements to date on AI – that warned we’re in danger of worshipping AI as a God, or as an idol.

Our investigation into Silicon Valley’s cult-like movement 

I first became interested in the Vatican’s perspective on AI while working on our Audible podcast series “Captured” with Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie. In our year-long investigation, we discovered how Silicon Valley’s AI pioneers have adopted quasi-religious language to describe their products and ambitions — with some tech leaders explicitly positioning themselves as prophets creating a new god.

In our reporting, we documented tech leaders like Bryan Johnson speaking literally about “creating God in the form of superintelligence,” billionaire investors discussing how to “live forever” through AI, and founders talking about building all-knowing, all-powerful machines that will free us from suffering and propel us into utopia. One founder told us their goal was to install “all human knowledge into every human” through brain-computer interfaces — in other words, make us all omniscient.

Nobel laureate Maria Ressa, whom I spoke with recently, told me she had warned Pope Francis about the dangers of algorithms designed to promote lies and disinformation. “Francis understood the impact of lies,” she said. She explained to the Pope how Facebook had destroyed the political landscape in the Philippines, where the platform’s engagement algorithms allowed disinformation to spread like wildfire. “I said — ‘this is literally an incentive structure that is rewarding lies.'”

According to Ressa, AI evangelists in Silicon Valley are acquiring “the power of gods without the wisdom of God.” It is power, she said, “that is in the hands of men whose arrogance prevents them from seeing the impact of rolling out technology that’s not safe for their kids.”

The battle for humanity’s future 

The Vatican has always understood how to use technology, engineering and spectacle to harness devotion and wield power — you only have to walk into St Peter’s Basilica to understand that. I spoke to a Vatican priest, on his way to Rome to pay his respects to the Pope. He told me why the Vatican understands the growing power of artificial intelligence so well. “We know perfectly well,” he said, “that certain structures can become divinities. In the end, technology should be a tool for living — it should not be the end of man.”

A version of this story was published in this week’s Coda Currents newsletter. Sign up here.