Pope Leo XIV has condemned US President Donald Trump and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang for downplaying the threats posed by artificial intelligence, warning that ignoring the dangers posed by technology endangers humanity’s common future and that the world must take human safety more seriously.

The criticism pits the pontiff against one of the technology industry’s most influential voices. Earlier this month, Huang rejected the idea of new rules to protect people from the potential risks of artificial intelligence, contrary to the views of some other executives. “We don’t need new laws — we don’t need new regulations,” he noted.

Huang further asserted that developers should not have to choose between moving fast and staying safe, insisting that rapid technological progress and robust security can absolutely go hand in hand.

More recently, Nvidia launched new AI safety tools, including its watchdog system Sentry. Pope Leo told reporters he had seen the company’s safety-related rollout but questioned how dedicated Huang really is to safety, given his opposition to federal oversight. “He’s the same one, however, that says there should be no limits placed and no government regulation,” the Pope said.

The exchange captures the fault line now running through the industry: whether voluntary tools like Sentry can deliver safety on their own, or whether binding government oversight is required.

Pope Leo asks leaders to cooperate on AI safety

AI safety has been a recurring theme of Pope Leo XIV’s papacy. In the first days of taking office, he designated AI as a massive threat to humankind. Back in May, he presented a new encyclical — one of the Catholic Church’s most formal teaching documents — alongside Anthropic co-founder Christopher Olah, urging tech pioneers to think beyond profit.

On Monday, the Pope reiterated his stance on AI safety, demanding that tech executives and political leaders take humanity’s concerns seriously.

“We need to continue to invite political leaders, leaders of AI, social organizations, and associations to come together and look at what is happening already and what could be down the road. To simply say ‘Oh, it’s not going to happen’ and close our eyes to it, I think, is probably not the most responsible way to go about that,” he stated.

With a clear message to doubters, the Pope reinforced the view that the dangers posed by artificial intelligence are not overstated but a real and imminent peril — not “fake news.”

The pontiff is not alone in sounding the alarm. Addressing a UN Security Council forum recently, Anthropic’s Dario Amodei and OpenAI’s Sam Altman warned of the dangers of unchecked artificial intelligence and pleaded for cooperation among rival countries to establish regulatory frameworks — an appeal that stands in direct contrast to Huang’s call to hold off on new rules.

Even before that, Amodei had authored an essay urging caution regarding artificial intelligence, asking companies to pace themselves.

Huang, for his part, has also acknowledged the stakes. While introducing Nvidia’s latest open-source safety system, he admitted that the technology’s massive societal benefits hinge on solving security vulnerabilities, though he voiced no intention to slow development. “AI’s extraordinary potential for society will only be realized if we solve AI safety,” he claimed.

More than 50% of respondents raise AI safety concerns

The papal intervention comes amid widespread public unease about artificial intelligence. According to data from Stanford University, 52% of respondents reported feeling nervous about AI technology.

Global optimism toward artificial intelligence is also ticking upward, however. The percentage of people who believe the benefits of AI outweigh the drawbacks rose from 55% in 2024 to 59% in 2025.

Specifically, a striking majority of more than 80% of respondents across Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and Singapore believe AI will profoundly alter their lives over the next three to five years. Of the four, Malaysia recorded the most significant jump in that sentiment compared with 2024.

Nonetheless, the threat of automation hangs heavily over the global workforce. According to Ipsos tracking data, a majority of workers throughout 2024 and 2025 remained fearful that artificial intelligence would upend or entirely erase their roles within five years.

That economic dread is most acute in the United States and Canada, where 67% and 68% of respondents, respectively, expect AI to wipe out jobs and destabilize entire industries.

The figures capture the tension at the center of the AI debate. While a growing share of the public sees meaningful benefits from the technology, anxiety over its consequences remains widespread — the same split now playing out among decision-makers, with Huang betting that safety can be engineered in-house while the Pope and rival executives argue that external oversight is essential.

Stanford’s 2026 AI Index also found that trust in governments’ ability to regulate AI varies considerably between countries, suggesting that public concern is not necessarily matched by confidence in existing oversight mechanisms.

As AI development accelerates, the disagreement between technology leaders, policymakers, and other public figures is increasingly focused on how much oversight is necessary — and who should be responsible for ensuring that increasingly powerful systems remain safe.