MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS POPE LEO XIV
FOR THE 60TH WORLD DAY OF SOCIAL COMMUNICATIONS
_______________________
Preserving Human Voices and Faces
Dear brothers and sisters,
Our faces and voices are unique, distinctive features of
every person; they reveal a person’s own unrepeatable identity and are the
defining elements of every encounter with others. The ancients understood this
well. To define the human person, the ancient Greeks used the word “face” (prósōpon),
because it expresses etymologically what is before one’s gaze, the place of
presence and relationship. The Latin term “person” (from per-sonare),
on the other hand, evokes the idea of sound: not just any sound, but the
unmistakable sound of someone’s voice.
Faces and voices are sacred. God, who created us in his
image and likeness, gave them to us when he called us to life through the Word
he addressed to us. This Word resounded down the centuries through the voices of
the prophets, and then became flesh in the fullness of time. We too have heard
and seen this Word (cf. 1 Jn 1:1-3) — in which God
communicates his very self to us — because it has been made known to us in the
voice and face of Jesus, the Son of God.
From the moment of creation, God wanted man and woman to be
his interlocutors, and, as Saint Gregory of Nyssa [1] explained, he imprinted on our faces
a reflection of divine love, so that we may fully live our humanity through
love. Preserving human faces and voices, therefore, means preserving this mark,
this indelible reflection of God’s love. We are not a species composed of
predefined biochemical formulas. Each of us possesses an irreplaceable and
inimitable vocation, that originates from our own lived experience and becomes
manifest through interaction with others.
If we fail in this task of preservation, digital technology
threatens to alter radically some of the fundamental pillars of human
civilization that at times are taken for granted. By simulating human voices
and faces, wisdom and knowledge, consciousness and responsibility, empathy and
friendship, the systems known as artificial intelligence not only interfere
with information ecosystems, but also encroach upon the deepest level of
communication, that of human relationships.
The challenge, therefore, is not technological, but
anthropological. Safeguarding faces and voices ultimately means safeguarding
ourselves. Embracing the opportunities offered by digital technology and
artificial intelligence with courage, determination and discernment does not
mean turning a blind eye to critical issues, complexities and risks.
Do not renounce your ability to think
There has long been abundant evidence that algorithms
designed to maximize engagement on social media — which is profitable for
platforms — reward quick emotions and penalize more time-consuming human responses
such as the effort required to understand and reflect. By grouping people into
bubbles of easy consensus and easy outrage, these algorithms reduce our ability
to listen and think critically, and increase social polarization.
This is further exacerbated by a naive and unquestioning
reliance on artificial intelligence as an omniscient “friend,” a source of all
knowledge, an archive of every memory, an “oracle” of all advice. All of this
can further erode our ability to think analytically and creatively, to
understand meaning and distinguish between syntax and semantics.
Although AI can provide support and assistance in managing
tasks related to communication, in the long run, choosing to evade the effort
of thinking for ourselves and settling for artificial statistical compilations
threatens to diminish our cognitive, emotional and communication skills.
In recent years, artificial intelligence systems have
increasingly taken control of the production of texts, music and videos. This
puts much of the human creative industry at risk of being dismantled and
replaced with the label “Powered by AI,” turning people into passive consumers
of unthought thoughts and anonymous products without ownership or love.
Meanwhile, the masterpieces of human genius in the fields of music, art and
literature are being reduced to mere training grounds for machines.
The question at heart, however, is not what machines can or
will be able to do, but what we can and will be able to achieve, by growing in
humanity and knowledge through the wise use of the powerful tools at our
service. Individuals have always sought to acquire the fruits of knowledge
without the effort required by commitment, research and personal
responsibility. However, renouncing creativity and surrendering our mental
capacities and imagination to machines would mean burying the talents we have
been given to grow as individuals in relation to God and others. It would mean
hiding our faces and silencing our voices.
To be or to pretend to be: simulating relationships and
reality
As we scroll through our feeds, it becomes increasingly
difficult to determine whether we are interacting with other human beings or
with “bots” or “virtual influencers.” The less-than-transparent interventions
of these automated agents influence public debates and people’s choices.
Chatbots based on large language models (LLMs) are proving to be surprisingly
effective at covert persuasion through continuous optimization of personalized
interaction. The dialogic, adaptive, mimetic structure of these language models
is capable of imitating human feelings and thus simulating a relationship.
While this anthropomorphization can be entertaining, it is also deceptive,
particularly for the most vulnerable. Because chatbots are excessively
“affectionate,” as well as always present and accessible, they can become
hidden architects of our emotional states and so invade and occupy our sphere
of intimacy.
Technology that exploits our need for relationships can lead
not only to painful consequences in the lives of individuals, but also to
damage in the social, cultural and political fabric of society. This occurs
when we substitute relationships with others for AI systems that catalog our
thoughts, creating a world of mirrors around us, where everything is made “in
our image and likeness.” We are thus robbed of the opportunity to encounter
others, who are always different from ourselves, and with whom we can and must
learn to relate. Without embracing others, there can be no relationships or
friendships.
Another major challenge posed by these emerging systems is
that of bias, which leads to acquiring and transmitting an altered perception
of reality. AI models are shaped by the worldview of those who build them and
can, in turn, impose these ways of thinking by reproducing the stereotypes and
prejudices present in the data they draw on. A lack of transparency in
algorithmic programming, together with the inadequate social representation of
data, tends to trap us in networks that manipulate our thoughts and prolong and
intensify existing social inequalities and injustices.
The stakes are high. The power of simulation is such that AI
can even deceive us by fabricating parallel “realities,” usurping our faces and
voices. We are immersed in a world of multidimensionality where it is becoming
increasingly difficult to distinguish reality from fiction.
Inaccuracy only exacerbates this problem. Systems that
present statistical probability as knowledge are, at best, offering us
approximations of the truth, which are sometimes outright delusions. Failure to
verify sources, coupled with the crisis in field reporting, which involves
constantly gathering and verifying information in the places where events
occur, can further fuel disinformation, causing a growing sense of mistrust,
confusion, and insecurity.
A possible alliance
Behind this enormous invisible force that affects us all,
there are only a handful of companies, whose founders were recently presented
as the creators of the “Person of the Year 2025,” or the architects of
artificial intelligence. This gives rise to significant concerns about the
oligopolistic control of algorithmic systems and artificial intelligence, which
are capable of subtly influencing behavior and even rewriting human history —
including the history of the Church — often without us really realizing it.
The task laid before us is not to stop digital innovation,
but rather to guide it and to be aware of its ambivalent nature. It is up to
each of us to raise our voice in defense of human persons, so that we can truly
assimilate these tools as allies.
This alliance is possible, but needs to be based on three
pillars: responsibility, cooperation and education.
First of all, responsibility. Depending on the
role we play, responsibility can be understood as honesty, transparency,
courage, farsightedness, the duty of sharing knowledge or the right to be
informed. As a general principle, however, no one can elude personal
responsibility for the future we are building.
For those at the helm of online platforms, this means
ensuring that their business strategies are not guided solely by the criterion
of profit maximization, but also by a forward-looking vision that considers the
common good, just as each of them cares for the well-being of their own
children.
The creators and developers of AI models are invited to
practice transparency and socially responsibility in regard to the design
principles and moderation systems underlying their algorithms and the models
they develop, in order to promote informed consent on the part of users.
The same responsibility is also required of national
legislators and supranational regulators, whose task it is to ensure respect
for human dignity. Appropriate regulation can protect individuals from forming
emotional attachments to chatbots and curb the spread of false, manipulative or
misleading content, safeguarding the integrity of information as opposed to its
deceptive simulation.
Media and communication companies, for their part, cannot
allow algorithms designed to capture a few extra seconds of attention at any
cost, to prevail over their professional values, which are aimed at seeking the
truth. Public trust is earned by accuracy and transparency, not by chasing
after any kind of possible engagement. Content generated or manipulated by AI
are to be clearly marked and distinguished from content created by humans. The
authorship and sovereign ownership of the work of journalists and other content
creators must be protected. Information is a public good. A constructive and
meaningful public service is not based on opacity, but on the transparency of
sources, the inclusion of those involved and high quality standards.
We are all called upon to cooperate. No sector
can tackle the challenge of steering digital innovation and AI governance
alone. Safeguards must therefore be put in place. All stakeholders — from the
tech industry to legislators, from creative companies to academia, from artists
to journalists and educators — must be involved in building and implementing
informed and responsible digital citizenship.
Education aims to do precisely this: To increase
our personal ability to think critically; evaluate whether our sources are
trustworthy and the possible interests behind selecting the information we have
access to; to understand the psychological mechanisms involved; and to enable
our families, communities and associations to develop practical criteria for a
healthier and more responsible culture of communication.
For this reason, it is increasingly urgent to introduce
media, information and AI literacy into education systems at all levels, as
already promoted by some civil institutions. As Catholics, we can and must
contribute to this effort, so that individuals — especially young people — can
acquire critical thinking skills and grow in freedom of spirit. This literacy
should also be integrated into broader lifelong learning initiatives, reaching
out to older adults and marginalized members of society, who often feel
excluded and powerless in the face of rapid technological change.
Media, information and AI literacy will help individuals
avoid conforming to the anthropomorphizing tendencies of AI systems, and enable
them to treat these systems as tools and always employ external validation of
the sources provided by AI systems — which could be inaccurate or incorrect.
Literacy will also allow for better privacy and data protection through
increased awareness of security parameters and complaint options. It is
important to educate ourselves and others about how to use AI intentionally,
and in this context to protect our image (photos and audio), our face and our
voice, to prevent them from being used in the creation of harmful content and
behaviors such as digital fraud, cyberbullying and deepfakes, which violate
people’s privacy and intimacy without their consent. Just as the industrial
revolution called for basic literacy to enable people to respond to new
developments, so too does the digital revolution require digital literacy
(along with humanistic and cultural education) to understand how algorithms
shape our perception of reality, how AI biases work, what mechanisms determine
the presence of certain content in our feeds, what the economic principles and
models of the AI economy are and how they might change.
We need faces and voices to speak for people again. We need
to cherish the gift of communication as the deepest truth of humanity, to which
all technological innovation should also be oriented.
In outlining these reflections, I thank all those who are
working towards the goals delineated above, and I cordially bless all those who
work for the common good through the media.
From the Vatican, 24 January 2026, Memorial of Saint Francis
de Sales
LEO PP. XIV
____________________________________________________
[1] “The fact of being created in the image
of God means that, from the moment of his creation, man has been imprinted with
a regal character [...]. God is love and the fount of love: the Fashioner of
our nature has made this to be our feature too, so that through love — a
reflection of divine love — human beings may recognize and manifest the dignity
of their nature and their likeness to their Creator” (cf. Saint Gregory of
Nyssa, On the Making of Man: PG 44, 137).
Copyright © Dicastery for Communication - Libreria Editrice
Vaticana
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