Recently, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff warned investors to avoid the "false prophets" of AI. Now, the Pope has brought real theological weight to the bot debate, hosting a Vatican seminar that called for global AI regulation and fair distribution of the technology's benefits.

The seminar [PDF] – dubbed Digital Rerum Novarum: Artificial Intelligence for Peace, Social Justice, and Integral Human Development – was organized by the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences together with the University of Notre Dame.

The newly installed, American-born Pope Leo XIV, said, in a message to the attendees, that while it has great potential, AI poses deep questions, not least how to create a "more authentically just and human global society."

More bluntly, he quoted his predecessor to remind his flock, that "While undoubtedly an exceptional product of human genius, AI is 'above all else a tool.'"