Pope Leo warns AI boom could fuel polarisation, violence in Cameroon address

Pope Leo XIV on Friday warned against the use of AI to fan “polarisation, conflict, fear and violence” and criticised the “environmental devastation” caused by the extraction of rare earths to fuel the digital boom.

“The challenge posed by these systems is greater than it appears: it is not just about the use of new technologies, but about the gradual replacement of reality by its simulation,” he said in a speech at the Catholic University of Central Africa in Yaoundé, Cameroon.

“In this way, polarisation, conflict, fear and violence spread. What is at stake is not merely the risk of error, but a transformation in our very relationship with truth.”

The pope had earlier held a giant open-air Mass at a stadium in Cameroon’s economic capital Douala, the biggest event of a visit marked by his calls for peace and spat with US President Donald Trump.

More than 120,000 people attended the celebration, the Vatican said based on local authority figures, with some travelling far or arriving the previous night for a chance to see the leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.

Amid a heavy security presence, Cameroonians began filing into the stadium on Thursday, staying there overnight ​so they could witness Leo’s homily in person.

Leo, the first ‌US pope, on Thursday criticised leaders who spend billions on wars and, in unusually forceful remarks, said the world was “being ravaged by a handful of tyrants”.

Read morePope Leo blasts ‘handful of tyrants’ ravaging world during Cameroon visit

After arriving in Douala by plane from Yaoundé, Leo ​said on Friday that many in Cameroon experience “material and spiritual poverty” but called on believers to reject violence as a ‌means to get ahead, regardless of the hardships they face.

“Do not give in to distrust and discouragement,” the pope urged, in an appeal made in English during a speech that was otherwise mostly in French.

“Reject every form of abuse or violence, which deceives by promising easy gains but hardens the heart and makes ‌it insensitive.”

The pontiff invoked the miracle of the loaves and fishes recounted in the Gospels, in which Jesus fed thousands with meagre resources. 

“There is bread for everyone if it is given to everyone,” he said. “There is bread for ​everyone if it is taken, not with a hand that snatches away, but with a hand that gives.”

Watch moreLeo and ‘the tyrants’: Does new pope’s defiant message resonate?

Leo’s call for caution towards AI came after Trump on Sunday posted an AI-generated image portraying himself as a Christ-like figure with a glowing halo. The image was taken down on Monday.

The pontiff conceded that “Christians, and especially young African Catholics, must not be afraid of new things”.

But the continent “also knows the darker side of the environmental and social devastation caused by the relentless pursuit of raw materials and rare earths”, he added. 

The AI boom is largely reliant on the extraction of cobalt needed to run energy-hungry data servers, with Africa often bearing the environmental, social and human cost of mining. 

‘Hope will come to rise again’

Notably, competition for the Democratic Republic of Congo’s rich veins of cobalt, copper, lithium and coltan has fuelled a spiral of violence in the mineral-rich east that has lasted three decades.

On a 11-day tour across Africa, the pontiff has also decried violations ​of international law by “neocolonial” world powers and said “the whims of the rich and ​powerful” threaten peace.

Cameroon, an oil- and cocoa-producing country, faces ​grave security challenges, including a simmering Anglophone conflict in which thousands of people have been killed since 2017.

Crowds greeting the ​pope on his visit have been enthusiastic, lining the streets along his routes and wearing colourful fabrics featuring images of his face.

Bishop Leopold Bayemi Matjei called Leo’s visit “a moment of great joy” and said he hoped it meant God would bless Cameroon.

“Our ⁠country needs a lot of blessing, a powerful blessing, so that hope will come to rise again,” ⁠said the bishop, ​who leads the Church in Obala, about an hour north of Yaounde.

(FRANCE 24 with Reuters and AFP)