Report from the Vatican

Gary Marcus reports on his visit to the Vatican where he met Pope Leo XIV and discussed the Pope's encyclical on artificial intelligence, Magnifica Humanitas. Marcus outlines the Pope's core points—including that AI future is not predetermined, machines are tools and not persons, certain decisions must not be delegated, technologies should serve the common good, and effective international institutions are needed—while offering his own commentary on why current large language models are flawed and why open-ended AI agents pose severe safety risks. Open article →