Pope Francis addresses the New Year and the 2024 World Day of Peace by presenting human intelligence and technological creativity as gifts that should serve God’s plan and the common good. He welcomes scientific progress while warning that digital technologies give humanity unprecedented power and can affect justice, social harmony, and the future of the common home. Artificial intelligence is not a neutral instrument: algorithms reflect their creators’ values, can manipulate choices, reproduce bias, generate convincing falsehoods, erode trust, threaten privacy and intellectual property, and intensify surveillance and discrimination. Because algorithms offer statistical approximations rather than complete truth, opaque systems require meaningful human oversight and must never reduce persons to data or replace human judgment, mercy, and forgiveness.

Francis warns especially against automated labor that concentrates wealth and against lethal autonomous weapons, insisting that machines cannot bear moral responsibility. He calls for “algor-ethics,” with ethical safeguards built into design and production, and for education that forms critical thinkers capable of recognizing disinformation and preserving genuine human encounter. Since AI’s effects cross borders, he urges international cooperation toward binding regulation grounded in human rights, justice, and the inclusion of vulnerable people, so that technology promotes fraternity and peace rather than inequality and conflict.