ROME — Pope Leo XIV says fears about artificial intelligence should be taken seriously, rejecting the idea that warnings about its potential danger to humanity are “fake news.”

Speaking to reporters Monday on a flight home from France, Leo said he was not in a panic but believed concerns raised by AI specialists deserved attention. He called for technology leaders, governments and others to examine what the systems are doing now and what they might do as they become more capable. The Vatican has established a commission to study AI’s risks and benefits. vatican.va

His warning raises a familiar question: How much control should people hand to a machine before they know they can get it back?

Hollywood was asking versions of that question in the 1980s. In WarGames, released in 1983, a teenager’s interaction with a military computer nearly triggers nuclear war. A year later, The Terminator imagined an artificial intelligence called Skynet at war with humanity. Those stories were fiction, but their creators plainly had thought about the danger of giving powerful systems authority over human lives. Apple TV

Today’s AI systems are not Skynet, and a movie is not evidence that catastrophe is coming. The films do show that the basic questions have been with us for decades: What happens when a computer acts in ways its operators did not expect? Who can stop it? Who is responsible when it causes harm?

Leo’s answer is to confront those questions while people still have choices. He urged continued study and discussion rather than assuming serious harm cannot happen. He also expressed optimism that people willing to work together can keep the technology from pushing humanity aside. vatican.va

The practical test is whether that concern leads to safeguards: independent testing, clear responsibility for failures and human control over decisions that can put lives at risk. We imagined the warning on movie screens more than 40 years ago. Now the people building and deploying AI must show how they intend to keep humans in charge.

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