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).
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