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Vance calls Pope Leo’s AI warnings ‘profound’
Vice President JD Vance praised Pope Leo XIV on Tuesday for issuing a new theological document rife with warnings about unbridled advancements in AI.
The text, Leo’s first encyclical since his installation as pope last year, urged a restraint that doesn’t stop progress but, rather, functions as the “exercise of responsible care for the human family.”
Vance, a Catholic and a proponent of AI technology, said in a telephone interview with NBC News that he had yet to read the entire encyclical but had scanned “bits and pieces” and summaries of it.
“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. “The thing about morality is that the principles never change, but the way you apply those principles does, because the world changes, right?”
“You have new technologies and warfare, so you have to update ‘Just War’ doctrine,” Vance added. “New ways of human beings interacting with one another, so you have to kind of rethink the entire Catholic social teaching in light of the new world that we live in. And I think that’s exactly what the pope is trying to do. So I’m glad that he did it.”
Leo released the encyclical alongside Christopher Olah, one of the co-founders of Anthropic. The artificial intelligence giant’s involvement had been seen as a potential flashpoint between the Vatican and President Donald Trump, whose administration ordered all agencies to stop using Anthropic after the company refused the U.S. military unrestricted access to its technology.
Vance’s interview Tuesday was his first to preview his forthcoming book, “Communion,” set to be released June 16 by HarperCollins. The book traces Vance’s faith journey — a Protestant upbringing, a drift into atheism and, most recently, a conversion to Catholicism.
In the interview, Vance confirmed a report last month by Semafor that he deleted X from his phone for Lent, the Christian season of prayer and sacrifice leading to Easter. Lent ended April 2, but Vance, whose penchant for directly engaging in social media discourse and debate is well-documented, revealed that he has not yet reinstalled the app, though he plans to at some point.
“It’s one of these things where not having that as a distraction, I think, has made me much more productive,” Vance said. “You’re not scrolling all the time when you get five minutes. I can actually read something, as opposed to, you know, scroll or get distracted by X.”
Vance noted that his social media account has remained active and that he still writes out many of his posts that staffers then publish on his behalf. He also confessed to missing the “direct interaction” he had with other users, including critics.
“I live in such a crazy bubble,” Vance said. “I travel with Secret Service all the time. If you think about how many unplanned interactions I have in a given week, it’s close to zero, because I live in such a bubble. And I think one of the good things about social media is that it actually exposes you to unfiltered raw opinions, and that’s one of the things that I need to hear as a political leader. So I will definitely reinstall it, but I’ve enjoyed my little break from it.”
Social media wasn’t the only Lenten sacrifice Vance made. The vice president said he committed himself to a “crazy diet” that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recommended: “a lot of protein” and “fermented foods writ large, so, you know, yogurt, cheese and things like that.”
“I think it definitely made me feel healthier, and it’s something I’ve continued with,” Vance added. “So, you know, that’s one of the cool things about Lent, is sometimes you do these things as an act of sacrifice, and you realize that not indulging yourself is maybe a very good thing.”
Vance, who was baptized in 2019, has often framed his vice presidency in his faith. After Joe Biden, he is the second Catholic to serve in the position, and Vance’s staff has emphasized how he is the first Catholic convert to hold the office. Vance was among the last people to meet with Pope Francis before his death last year and returned to the Vatican weeks later for the installation of Leo, the first U.S.-born pope.
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“I’m really glad” that the pontiff took “the name Leo XIV. I think it was very much a nod to Leo XIII who, of course, became pope at the beginning of the Industrial Age,” Vance said Tuesday. “I think that Leo XIV is becoming pope at the beginning of the AI age, and I suspect that if we make it through this successfully, it will be in large part because the pope and the church are able to provide the kind of moral leadership that we need.”
Vance’s position on AI — largely supportive of its advancement and leery of government regulation — has been informed in part by his background in Silicon Valley venture capital and the close relationships he has nurtured with some of the nation’s Big Tech luminaries. His views also have been informed by his faith. Recently, with polls finding voters concerned about AI’s rise, Vance has approached the issue with more public skepticism. He has stressed a need, for example, to ensure that new AI models protect businesses and consumers from cybersecurity vulnerabilities.
“The technology, and I talked a little bit about this in the book, but it just raises such profound questions for how we interact with one another, what kind of skills we need in the workforce, the kind of wars that we’ll fight and how we’ll fight our wars,” Vance said Tuesday. “I think we really need moral leadership to think through those questions, and that’s exactly what the church is the best leader to do.”
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