What do religious leaders say about AI?

Ten religious leaders and bodies, twelve quotations. Religious leaders speak about AI from a different starting point from everyone else in this register: they begin with what a human being is, and reason towards the technology from there. Pope Francis told the G7 in June 2024 that a space for proper human control over the choices of AI must be safeguarded because 'human dignity itself depends on it'. Pope Leo XIV wrote in his first encyclical that technology 'is never neutral, because it takes on the characteristics of those who devise, finance, regulate and use it'. The Archbishop of Canterbury offered the House of Lords one test: does AI make human life more human? Rabbi Sacks located what is uniquely human 'not in intelligence, which can be artificial, but in loving and being loved'.

This is one of nine slices of the register of what the world's leaders say about AI, which sets out how every quotation was found and checked twice against its source. 10 religious leaders and bodies, 12 quotations, grouped by region.

UK#

This poses the question: does AI make human life more human? The question matters for those designing, developing and building the technology as they think about what ideologies and belief systems should underpin the models, for there is no such thing as value-neutral technology.

Sarah Mullally, Archbishop of Canterbury, United Kingdom. Opening speech in the House of Lords debate she tabled, 'Artificial Intelligence: Impact on Human Relationships and Society', 5 June 2026. Hansard, UK Parliament. She proposed a single test for developers, regulators and users: whether the technology makes human life more human.

What happens when soulless Artificial Intelligence, devoid of feeling and emotion, is called upon to make moral or ethical choices on our behalf?

Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, United Kingdom. BBC Radio 4 'Thought for the Day' on the Today programme, 25 March 2019. chiefrabbi.org. He questioned whether moral responsibility can be delegated to automated systems or to the people who write them.

That uniqueness is at the heart of our humanity. And it exists not in intelligence, which can be artificial, but in loving and being loved.

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, Former Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, United Kingdom. BBC Radio 4 'Thought for the Day', 2 April 2014. rabbisacks.org. Discussing Spielberg's film A.I., he located human distinctiveness in relationship rather than intellect.

Europe#

Technology has the power to heal, connect, educate and protect our common home; but it can also divide, exclude and generate new forms of injustice. In the abstract, technology in and of itself is not a solution to humanity's problems, just as it is not inherently evil. In practice, however, technology is never neutral, because it takes on the characteristics of those who devise, finance, regulate and use it.

Pope Leo XIV, Pope, Head of the Catholic Church, Vatican City. Encyclical Letter 'Magnifica Humanitas', paragraph 9, 15 May 2026. vatican.va. Official English translation from Latin/Italian. In his first encyclical he argued that technology carries the intentions of those who build and govern it, so the choice is about how it is directed rather than whether to accept it.

Real life is more than measurable reality, more than numbers, more than square logic. Life is not digital. The human soul is filled with emotions, empathy, and spontaneous hierarchies of priorities.

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Turkey. Address to students on artificial intelligence, 8 May 2026. Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. He argued that human experience is not reducible to what can be measured or computed.

In our own day, the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defence of human dignity, justice and labour.

Pope Leo XIV, Pope, Head of the Catholic Church, Vatican City. Address to the College of Cardinals, explaining his choice of the name Leo, 10 May 2025. vatican.va. Official English translation from Italian. He linked his papal name to Leo XIII's encyclical on industrial-era labour and said AI raises comparable questions about work and dignity.

There is a broader understanding of intelligence, which is about our human capacity to find purpose and meaning in life. And that is a form of intelligence, which machines can't really replace.

Bishop Paul Tighe, Secretary of the Vatican Dicastery for Culture and Education, Vatican City. Interview with Vatican News on the release of the Holy See note 'Antiqua et Nova', 28 January 2025. Vatican News. He was distinguishing machine problem-solving from the human search for meaning as the document defines intelligence.

We need to ensure and safeguard a space for proper human control over the choices made by artificial intelligence programs: human dignity itself depends on it.

Pope Francis, Pope, Head of the Catholic Church, Vatican City. Address to the G7 session on artificial intelligence, Borgo Egnazia, Puglia, 14 June 2024. vatican.va. Official English translation from Italian. Addressing G7 leaders, he argued that decisions about human lives must remain with human beings rather than with machines.

Autonomous weapon systems can never be morally responsible subjects. The unique human capacity for moral judgment and ethical decision-making is more than a complex collection of algorithms, and that capacity cannot be reduced to programming a machine, which as "intelligent" as it may be, remains a machine.

Pope Francis, Pope, Head of the Catholic Church, Vatican City. Message for the 57th World Day of Peace, 'Artificial Intelligence and Peace' (for 1 January 2024), 8 December 2023. vatican.va. Official English translation from Italian. He was arguing against delegating lethal decisions to autonomous systems.

North America#

But the root of our unreadiness is not that we don't adequately understand what a chatbot is. It's that we don't sufficiently understand what a human being is.

Russell Moore, Editor-in-Chief of Christianity Today; former head of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, United States. Essay, 'An Image of God for an Era of AI', Christianity Today, July 2025. Christianity Today. He argued that the churches' difficulty with AI is a question about human nature rather than about the technology.

RESOLVED, That we state unequivocally that our intrinsic value is as image bearers – not rooted in what we do or contribute to society – and that human dignity must be central to any ethical principles, guidelines, or regulations for any and all uses of these powerful emerging technologies

Southern Baptist Convention, Largest Protestant denomination in the United States (resolution adopted at its Annual Meeting), United States. Resolution 'On Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technologies', adopted at the SBC Annual Meeting, New Orleans, 14 June 2023. sbc.net. The denomination set out human dignity, rather than economic contribution, as the basis for judging AI.

Asia#

What we have missed is the technology of consciousness. We developed the technology of the material world. Now we have to develop the technology of inner abilities - your own consciousness.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Founder of the Art of Living Foundation, India. Art of Living 'Intuition' event, International Centre, Bengaluru, 27 May 2026. Republic World. Speaking to children and parents, he argued that inner human faculties should be developed alongside machine intelligence.

The question the others assume#

Russell Moore's line is the hinge of this slice: 'The root of our unreadiness is not that we don't adequately understand what a chatbot is. It's that we don't sufficiently understand what a human being is.' Every other group in the register argues about what the machine will do. The religious leaders argue about what must not be handed over, and why. Francis on autonomous weapons, Mirvis on moral choices made on our behalf, Bartholomew on a life that 'is not digital', Paul Tighe on an intelligence that finds purpose and meaning: each names a decision or a capacity that should stay with a person because of what a person is.

Two arguments that reach the same place#

The dignity argument and the decision-rights argument converge. Francis asks for human control because dignity depends on it; this site asks which decisions a machine may make because judgement erodes when it is not exercised. Leo XIV's observation that technology carries the intentions of those who build, finance and use it is the same point the audit and oversight pages make about who assures the AI in a decision. Read together, the encyclical and the board paper are asking the same question of different rooms.

The decision that stays with you#

Inside an organisation the dignity question becomes a practical one: which decisions about people a machine may make, who can stop each one, what the people who make them must remain able to do without the machine, and how anyone would know if it went wrong. That is the argument of Rules Before Tools, and the measurable risk sits there, in the handover of decisions to machines and what happens to human judgement afterwards.

What these quotations do not show#

Christian and Jewish voices dominate this slice, and that is a gap in the register rather than in the world. The Dalai Lama's dialogues on AI and ethics record no verbatim line of his on the technology itself; the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar's words at the Rome Call in 2023 are not reproduced on any page that could be read at source; Sadhguru's most-shared line comes from a social media post rather than a published text. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's line is one the outlet says he has 'often said'. The Southern Baptist resolution is a corporate document, not one person's words, and Antiqua et Nova is a note of two Vatican dicasteries, so its sentences are not attributed here to Pope Francis personally.