Pope Leo XIV Reveals How AI Helped Choose His Papal Name
In his first formal address as the pontiff, Pope Leo XIV revealed that artificial intelligence (AI) not only shaped his thinking but also his choice of papal name. The Chicago-born Augustinian missionary, Robert Prevost, was elected on Thursday (May 8) afternoon after a two-thirds majority vote from the cardinals.
In an address to the College of Cardinals, Pope Leo XIV explained that his name references Pope Leo XIII, who presided over the church between 1878 and 1903-- at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. The new pope drew parallels between the rapid industrialisation of the 19th century and today's surge in AI.
"I chose to take the name Leo XIV. There are different reasons for this, but mainly because Pope Leo XIII in his historic Encyclical Rerum Novarum addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution," said the pope, according to the Vatican's translation of his speech.
The original Rerum novarum, issued in 1891, addressed the rights of workers amid the upheavals of the industrial age.
Perils of AI
The pope also highlighted the perils of AI, adding that society must confront the ethical challenges of today's technological era.
"In our own day, the church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defence of human dignity, justice and labour," he said.
The pope's comment comes in the backdrop of the US President Donald Trump posting an AI-generated image of himself dressed as the pontiff, joking he would like the job.
Notably, Pope Leo's predecessor, the late Pope Francis, frequently talked about potential benefits and risks associated with the novel technology. In 2023, Pope Francis became a victim of AI-driven forgery when an image of him in a white designer puffer jacket went viral on social media. Reacting to the incident, he cautioned about doctored images that 'appear perfectly plausible but false".
Pope Leo XIV will be formally installed as pope on May 18, 2025, in St. Peter's Square, marking the beginning of his papacy.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
&w=3840&q=100)
Business Standard
16 hours ago
- Business Standard
The next tech revolution must revise history, put humans before greed
Maybe it is time to revisit what Mahatma Gandhi said during the Swaraj movement Ajit Balakrishnan Listen to This Article One of the enduring mysteries in my life has been trying to understand why the Industrial Revolution, which started in England in the mid-18th century and introduced spinning and weaving machines, did not first happen in India. After all, India was producing most of the world's cotton thread and cloth at that time. Whenever I ask this, I get the answer: 'Indian labour costs were so low that nobody needed to invent machines to spin or weave.' The term 'Industrial Revolution' was popularised by the English economic historian Arnold Toynbee in an 1882 lecture at Oxford University to describe how
News18
2 days ago
- News18
‘AI To Wipe Out Half Of Entry-Level Jobs': Trump ‘Silent', But Barack Obama Says...
Last Updated: Former US President Barack Obama's reaction came in response to an article that offers a blunt warning about the risks AI poses to the workforce. Former US President Barack Obama has raised concerns about the uncertain future that artificial intelligence (AI) could bring for jobs, especially white-collar ones. His reaction came in response to an article that offers a blunt warning about the risks AI poses to the workforce. Sharing the article on his X (formerly Twitter) account, he wrote, 'At a time when people are understandably focused on the daily chaos in Washington, these articles describe the rapidly accelerating impact that AI is going to have on jobs, the economy and how we live." At a time when people are understandably focused on the daily chaos in Washington, these articles describe the rapidly accelerating impact that AI is going to have on jobs, the economy, and how we live. — Barack Obama (@BarackObama) May 30, 2025 The article he shared, from features Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, who gives a stark warning to the US government. He said AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs in the next one to five years and push unemployment to between 10 and 20 per cent. He urged both AI companies and the government to stop 'sugar-coating" what's coming. 'Most of them are unaware that this is about to happen. It sounds crazy and people just don't believe it," he said. Amodei explained how AI is no longer just helping workers by automating simple tasks but is starting to replace jobs in fields like technology, finance, law and consulting. He said, 'It's going to happen in a small amount of time—as little as a couple of years or less." Amodei is not alone who has raised the alarm. Steve Bannon, a top official during Trump's first term and host of the popular MAGA podcast 'War Room," says AI's impact on jobs is being ignored now but will become a big issue in the 2028 presidential campaign. 'I don't think anyone is taking into consideration how administrative, managerial and tech jobs for people under 30 — entry-level jobs that are so important in your 20s — are going to be eviscerated," Bannon told the outlet. Meanwhile, Obama's post caught attention online with many users agreeing that the issue needs more attention. One user commented, 'Good to see a former president raise awareness of the storm that is coming." Another added, 'This is a big deal. There are many jobs for which it is trivial for AI to replace. A sober warming that needs to be taken seriously." 'Agreed. Although this narrative has been present before – including during the Industrial Revolution – and we managed through it. Maybe this time is different," a person remarked. An individual pointed out, 'Undoubtedly, there will be certain repercussions. However, it is crucial not to underestimate the resilience and adaptability of humanity. Throughout history, in the face of any emerging technology, humanity has consistently demonstrated its capacity to adjust and navigate new challenges." While Obama agreed with Amodei's concerns, this isn't the first time he has spoken about AI's impact on jobs. Back in April, during an event at Hamilton College in New York, he shared his thoughts on how AI could affect job security. He pointed out that roles involving routine tasks are at higher risk. According to him, advanced AI models can code better than '60 per cent, 70 per cent of coders now." First Published:
Indian Express
2 days ago
- Indian Express
India may soon become the third-largest economy in the world. But there is more to it
In a bout of professional enthusiasm, the chief executive officer of NITI Aayog, the Union government's policy body for transforming India, announced that the Indian economy had overtaken Japan to become the world's fourth-largest economy, following the USA, China and Germany. He jumped the gun because, as NITI Aayog member Arvind Virmani pointed out, this is likely to happen a few months down the road. With a nominal GDP of $4.187 trillion, India is set to move ahead of Japan's GDP of $4.186 trillion by the end of 2025. However, as many have pointed out, the vast gap between Japan's per capita GDP of $33,900 and India's per capita GDP of $2,880 sets the two apart. India remains a low-middle-income economy, a developing economy with a modest per capita income but demographics that will sustain the growth process. Japan is a developed, if an ageing, industrial and trading power. The sustained growth of the Indian economy over the past three decades, with its ups and downs, has, without doubt, slowly but surely increased the size of the economy. Way back in July 1991, the then finance minister of India, Manmohan Singh, told Parliament, prefacing his forecast with Victor Hugo's famous words that 'no power on Earth can stop an idea whose time has come', that the emergence of India as a major economic power in the world happens to be one such idea. It became an idea that gained international recognition a few years later when the British historian Angus Maddison published his masterly survey of the world economy pointing to the resurgence of China and India. Maddison's classic study of The World Economy (OECD, 20023) made the point that in 1700, China and India accounted for almost half the world income and that two centuries of colonialism, combined with the fact that the Industrial Revolution had occurred mainly in Europe, contributed to the decline of these ancient and large Asian economies. The Maddison study kindled hope in Asia that China and India were on the way to recover their lost space in the global economy and that the 21st century would once again be an Asian century. Since China was by then rising at a faster pace, it overtook Japan in 2010. This event happened soon after the transatlantic financial crisis (usually referred to as the global financial crisis), of 2008-09. The crisis had helped China overtake Japan and Europe and reduce the gap with the USA. It created a global flutter and marked the turning point in China's global rise. It is instructive to recall that in 2010, China overtook Japan when Japan's GDP was still $5.474 trillion. China's emergence as the world's second-largest economy sent Japan into a funk. Japan had already lived through a decade of low growth and low expectations, and China overtaking it became a wake-up call. It would not be incorrect to speculate that the return of Shinzo Abe as prime minister of Japan in 2012 (his first term of 2006-07 was truncated by poor health) was partly on account of Japan's yearning for a strong and charismatic leader focused on economic revival. Abe began his second tenure launching the 'three arrows' programme that came to be known as 'Abenomics' — of aggressive monetary easing, liberal fiscal policy and structural reforms aimed at enhancing productivity and growth. This gave Japan hope that, despite being pushed to third place by China, it could still remain a globally important economy. The exit of Abe, followed by a string of lacklustre leadership and the challenges posed by the return of President Donald Trump, have depressed Japan once again. To add to its woes, Germany recently overtook Japan, becoming the third-largest economy, pushing Japan to fourth place. Germany, too, has been slowing down, and so Japan and Germany could see themselves swapping places from time to time, depending on their relative performance. Also, recall that China overtook a still-growing Japan, India is overtaking a slowing Japan and a slowing Germany. It is against this background that news has come from the International Monetary Fund that India is now poised to overtake Japan. It is interesting to note that while there was much hand-wringing and widespread concern in Japan when China overtook it, the news about India has not made any impact in Japan. There was, according to my friends in Japan, little news coverage and no expression of any concern. This could be on account of the fact that while China is viewed as a challenge in Japan, India is viewed as an opportunity. Good diplomatic and economic relations have, in part, contributed to a benign response in Japan to the news of India's rise. Equally, the fact that India in no way poses any challenge to Japan, either as an economic competitor or as a geopolitical rival, would also explain the subdued reporting of the IMF news. When China overtook Japan, the former was viewed as a significant competitor in the global market as well as a geopolitical rival. Export-dependent Japan viewed with concern the rise of China as a global trading power. India, on the other hand, is still not viewed as a competitor in the trading world, much less a geopolitical rival. It is still possible that exchange rate changes, new challenges in global trade and seasonal performance of the three economies — India, Japan and Germany — may keep the rank race alive for some time. After all, the gap between the three is not much. If the Indian economy forges ahead over the next few years and crosses the $5 trillion mark, it would place some distance between itself and Japan and Germany. If not, these rankings could keep changing. What is, however, certain is that once India clearly establishes itself as the third-largest economy, it will remain in that place for a long time to come, given the distance it has to travel to catch up with China, whose nominal GDP is currently around $18 trillion. With the US and China in a race for economic space and geopolitical influence, India's best bet would be to focus on its own economic performance and ensure that it is able to sustain an inclusive growth process that makes the economy more competitive and improves peoples' lives. The writer is founder-trustee, Centre for Air Power Studies and distinguished fellow, United Service Institution of India
