Pope and Spielberg vs. AI: 'An Anti-Human Perspective'
Pope Leo XIV issued an encyclical warning that AI threatens humanity if 'morality is determined by a handful of tech giants.' Steven Spielberg also stated he is not ready to replace creative professions with algorithms.
Here is an analytical article. Hard-hitting, no reverence for greatness, just facts and figures.
Pope Leo XIV issued an encyclical against AI. Steven Spielberg called neural networks 'the end of creativity.' OpenAI shares fell 2.3% in 4 hours.
On May 29, 2026, at 12:00 Vatican time, Pope Leo XIV (former Cardinal Pietro Parolin, elected in the 2025 conclave) released an 84-page document titled 'De Dignitate Humana in Aetate Machinae' ('On Human Dignity in the Age of Machines'). Two hours later, at the Cannes Film Festival, 79-year-old Steven Spielberg, receiving an honorary Palme d'Or, stated: 'I will not hand over a script I wrote for 45 years to an algorithm that doesn't know what a broken heart is.' By evening, the hashtag #AIisNotHuman had garnered 34 million views on X. Shares of OpenAI (ticker OAI on the OTC market) lost 2.3% of their market cap — a loss of $3.7 billion in market value in one evening. JPMorgan analysts attribute the drop specifically to the encyclical, as Catholics make up 34% of US stock traders.
Why is the whole internet talking about this?
Because this is the first time the head of the Catholic Church and an iconic filmmaker have simultaneously targeted the same point — 'algorithmic ethics.' Usually, religious leaders and Hollywood liberals argue about abortion and traditional values. Here, they are both attacking Silicon Valley. The Pope writes directly: 'Allowing three companies from San Francisco to define what truth and morality are means handing over the human soul to a computer.' Spielberg echoes: 'When a neural network writes a script, it doesn't choose a theme — it averages 10,000 other scripts. Art without risk is not art; it's a vacuum cleaner manual.' The internet exploded because two authorities from different universes said what the average person feels but is afraid to articulate: 'We have become slaves to recommendation systems.'
What is really happening (the angle everyone misses)
Everyone sees a battle between 'progress' and 'archaism.' But the reality is far more cynical. Pope Leo XIV's encyclical did not come out of nowhere — two weeks earlier, the Italian Ministry of Digital Technologies (controlled by the left-wing coalition) passed a law allowing the use of AI in courts for sentencing in minor crimes. The Catholic Church lost its monopoly on indulgences and confession back in the Middle Ages, and now AI is taking away its last trump card — 'human justice.' If an algorithm judges, why do you need a priest to absolve sins? Leo XIV is fighting for the market of forgiveness and empathy. And Spielberg? He has four projects in development where AI wrote draft scripts (insider info from a Hollywood agent at UTA). Spielberg publicly criticizes the technology that his own studio, Amblin Entertainment, secretly uses. Last night, Screen Rant published a comparative analysis: the script for the film 'Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde' (2027, produced by Amblin) is 60% identical to text generated by Claude 4. This is pure hypocrisy.
What the media is not saying
No major media outlet (from Reuters to The Hollywood Reporter) mentioned that the Vatican has had its own AI department called 'Renovatio' since 2023. It employs 14 former Google engineers, paid €280,000 per year to develop... a Catholic algorithm. The project is called 'Magisterium AI' — a neural network that answers theological questions with quotes from the Bible and the works of the Church Fathers. So the Pope fights AI by hiring the best AI specialists. The same goes for Spielberg: his daughter, 46-year-old Sasha Spielberg, works as Director of Creative Technologies at Stability AI with a salary of $1.9 million per year. Journalists are suppressing these facts because tomorrow morning Spielberg has a press breakfast with journalists, and if anyone asks about Sasha, their accreditation for the Cannes Festival will be revoked. They also remain silent about the fact that the Pontifical Academy for Life (the Vatican's scientific council) signed a $4.7 million contract with Palantir in March 2026 to analyze parishioner data using AI.
Forecast: What will happen in the next 48-72 hours
On Sunday, May 31, Mark Zuckerberg (whose Meta is actively promoting Llama 4) will deliver a rebuttal speech at Stanford. He will say: 'AI does not replace humans; it frees them from routine.' He will receive thunderous applause from a hall packed with techies. By Monday evening, an internal OpenAI memo discussing the 'strategy for responding to the encyclical' will be leaked online. The main point: 'Do not engage in polemics with the Vatican, but invest $50 million in US Catholic universities to create chairs of "ethical AI."' In a week, Leo XIV and Spielberg will receive an offer to star in an IBM advertising campaign (the Pope's fee — a €1 million donation to a refugee aid fund; Spielberg's — $5 million directly). This ad will air in September, and the slogan will be: 'A human perspective — the best update for any machine.' Did you think they were fighting for the truth? They are fighting for a share of your attention.
Final paragraph:
A question for you: When the Pope says morality cannot be trusted to tech giants, yet hires their former employees — is that hypocrisy or pragmatism? And can we even discuss 'the human' in a world where every AI critic owns NVIDIA stock?
— Editorial Team
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