Pope Leo on AI art: Beyond aesthetics, ‘there is an ontological difference’

VATICAN CITY — There is a fundamental difference between the art humans create and what artificial intelligence can make based on the work of others, Pope Leo XIV told a group of artists on Friday.

“The Church needs you,” the pontiff said at the Oct. 2 encounter at the Vatican. “This is especially true in this age of artificial intelligence, in which we urgently need to distinguish human art from what is produced by machines.”

“There is an ontological difference — even before an aesthetic one — between art and what a machine can generate through statistical calculation based on millions of images created by others. Algorithms lack the spark of the human, whereas ‘authentic culture and art preserve this spark,’” Leo said, quoting from his encyclical on AI, Magnifica Humanitas.

The pope said this is the reason why the Catholic Church wishes to renew its alliance with artists and cultural institutions.

Leo’s address to artists and curators in the Apostolic Palace was part of a meeting on “The Art of Possibility: Weaving Together,” organized by the Dicastery for Culture and Education.

The pope pointed to St. Augustine and his testimony of the “restlessness of the human heart in search of truth.”

“Art, when it is authentic, is also animated by this restlessness. For this reason, the Church has never considered art to be merely decorative. Instead, for the Church, art nurtures the fundamental posture of listening, through which we can learn about humanity’s aspirations and wounds, our thirst for beauty, justice and peace, and our search for meaning,” he said.

In the age of search engines and their endless, instantaneous answers that only “give us what we already want,” art is different, he noted.

Art “does not proceed by indexing but by inquiry,” the pontiff said. “Indeed, its inquiry is a focused attention that is not satisfied with the mere sum of facts, for it never ceases to dig deeper, seeking the thread that unites them. Your art, when it resists homogenization, when it draws our gaze, when it compels us to pause before that which cannot be consumed, is a form of cultural and spiritual regeneration.”

Leo cited the homily of his predecessor St. Paul VI from a Mass with artists in 1964.

“St. Paul VI spoke words that remain a landmark for the Church’s relationship with artists: ‘We need you,’ he said. ‘Our ministry needs your collaboration. For, as you know, our ministry is to preach and to make the world of the spirit, of the invisible, of the ineffable, of God, accessible and understandable — indeed, inspiring. And in this task, which translates the invisible world into accessible, intelligible forms, you are masters,’” Pope Leo quoted.