The Pope’s AI warning lands in Washington

Among people of faith with strong ties to Silicon Valley, no one faces a thornier dilemma when confronting Pope Leo’s encyclical on artificial intelligence than Vice President JD Vance (R-OH).  The country’s most powerful Catholic, Vice President Vance, is also surely aware of growing AI skepticism on the religious right. At the same time, he has championed President Donald Trump’s broadly hands-off approach to AI and is a longtime Peter Thiel ally. In the days leading up to the release of the encyclical, the Vice President was being pressed on it by reporters at a White House press briefing.  As a leading contender for the 2028 GOP nomination, there was always going to be plenty of scrutiny of Vance’s AI stance. But his ties to both Silicon Valley and the Catholic Church have raised the stakes for his approach to the technology. It also seems Vance’s approach may be shifting. After seeing the Anthropic model Mythos, which has yet to be released due to security concerns, VP Vance reportedly told an assembled group of AI CEOs on a call that it scared him, and that they needed to “work together” on the best way forward for the industry. That’s a very different message from a year earlier, when he said in a landmark speech in Paris that “we believe that excessive regulation of the AI sector could kill a transformative industry just as it’s taking off.” VP Vance told Air Force Academy cadets that he “endorse[d]” Pope Leo’s sentiment that “human beings [should] not outsource the most important moral decisions to digital technology.” He was also largely supportive of the pope’s message in an interview with NBC, saying he was glad Pope Leo issued the encyclical. “What I read of it sounds very profound, and the sort of thing that you would expect and hope from a leader of the church,” he said.