The Pope Has Thoughts on AI Art—And They're Not Flattering

In brief

• Pope Leo XIV said in an Oct. 2 post on X that there is an "ontological difference" between human art and what machines generate.
• He said the Church wants to renew an alliance with artists and cultural institutions to "safeguard our humanity."
• The post follows a May encyclical on AI and a Sept. 25 speech in Paris in which he cited it.

Pope Leo XIV said Friday that there is an "ontological difference" between human art and what machines generate, and that the Church wants to renew an alliance with artists and cultural institutions to "safeguard our humanity."

The pope posted the message on X, where he has shared AI warnings before.

“There is an ontological difference, even before an aesthetic one, between art and what a machine can generate through statistical calculation based on millions of images created by others. Algorithms lack the spark of humanity,” the Pope wrote.

"Ontological" is philosophy-speak for what something fundamentally is, as opposed to how it looks. His point is, essentially, that a painting by a person and an image from a model can look alike and still be totally different things. He says that gap exists before any question of style.

His reasoning is blunt. A machine, he wrote, works through "statistical calculation" built on millions of images made by others.