Pope Leo XIV Warns of ‘Ontological Difference’ Between Human Art and AI

The Pope has entered the debate over artificial intelligence and art, and his opinion is unkind. On X, he wrote that there is an “ontological difference” separating what humans create from what machines produce. He insists this gap exists apart from any consideration of style.

The message from the pope arrives with its history attached. For years now, he has issued warnings about artificial intelligence, and his own social media account has been flagged by AI detection tools. The irony is part of the story.

The Pope’s Warning

“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,” the Pope wrote. “Algorithms lack the spark of humanity.”

“Ontological” is philosophy-speak for what something fundamentally is. The pope’s point is that a painting by a person and an image from a model can look alike and still be totally different things. The gap, he says, exists before any question of style.

He states his position plainly: a machine operates by means of “statistical calculation”, constructed from millions of images created by other people. The finished product carries no hand and no personal experience behind it.

The AI Slope

The pope’s concern goes beyond the poor quality of AI-generated content. His argument is that the issue lies in what the thing actually is, not merely in its appearance. The images are produced by statistical calculation, and the pope maintains that this process leaves out the human touch.

The term he did not use is “AI slop.” That is the low-quality AI content produced in bulk that Merriam-Webster named its 2025 word of the year. The pope’s argument is that the problem is not only quality, but what the thing actually is.

A Long File

This is not an isolated incident. In May, Pope Leo issued his first encyclical, titled Magnifica Humanitas, which addressed the protection of people during the era of artificial intelligence. The document maintained that technology is never neutral and that data should be regarded as a common good.

That same month, the Vatican established an AI commission covering seven Vatican departments, with the goal of coordinating how the Holy See’s offices handle AI, including internal policies governing its use.

At the Élysée Palace in Paris on Sept. 25, the pope said it was essential to treat AI as the topic of his first encyclical. He also issued a warning during that speech about science and technology, saying they can push people away from the good when they lack guidance from conscience.

The Detector Problem

The problem was discovered in April, when Pangram Labs’ AI-detection extension marked several posts from his own X account as potentially generated by artificial intelligence. At the time, the Vatican declined to respond to requests for comment.

Defects exist within these systems. In 2024, ZeroGPT declared the U.S. Declaration of Independence 97.93% to be machine-made. Proudly Human made the same announcement in July, saying a set of Leo’s speeches and writings on education and AI had received a human-authored stamp.

Copyright and Ownership

Over the past couple of years, the question “who made this?” is turning into a legal and money question. In March, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Thaler v. Perlmutter, leaving in place an appeals court ruling that copyright requires a human author. The case was over art made entirely by an AI system.

Voters have left with their feet. Cara, a portfolio network constructed to exclude AI images, had amassed almost 900,000 users by June 2024.

The Order of Events

1. In April, Pangram Labs’ AI-detection extension marked several posts from the pope’s X account as potentially generated by artificial intelligence.
2. In May, Pope Leo issued his first encyclical, titled Magnifica Humanitas, addressing the protection of people during the era of artificial intelligence.
3. Also in May, the Vatican established an AI commission covering seven Vatican departments to coordinate how the Holy See’s offices handle AI.
4. In July, Proudly Human announced that a set of Leo’s speeches and writings on education and AI had received a human-authored stamp.
5. On Sept. 25, at the Élysée Palace in Paris, the pope said it was essential to treat AI as the topic of his first encyclical and issued a warning about science and technology.
6. In 2024, ZeroGPT declared the U.S. Declaration of Independence 97.93% to be machine-made.
7. In March, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Thaler v. Perlmutter, leaving in place an appeals court ruling that copyright requires a human author.

What We Make of It

The pontiff’s warning carries sincerity, yet it comes with irony. A leader who has spent years issuing warnings about AI has had his own posts flagged by the very tools he warns against. The account mentions that a separate detector mistook the U.S. Declaration of Independence for AI writing.

What the pope is arguing has nothing to do with quality. It concerns what something fundamentally is. Yet the very instruments he warns against have shown mixed results when measured against his own output.

The pope’s warning has already been made before. Now it comes attached to a record that makes people wonder whether the writer is a person or something else entirely.

Source material: “The Pope Has Thoughts on AI Art—And They're Not Flattering,” Decrypt.

AI art · artificial intelligence · copyright · Pope · vatican