Since the beginning of his papacy, Pope Leo XIV has consistently emphasized his commitment to providing doctrinal and spiritual guidance to Catholics and all people of goodwill regarding the challenges posed by the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI). He has expressed particular concern for its potential impact on younger generations. Recently, His Holiness addressed an event attended by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and parliamentary delegations from 68 countries. As the Pope stated, “In particular, it must not be forgotten that artificial intelligence functions as a tool for the good of human beings, not to diminish them or even to replace them.”

On the positive side, AI proponents argue that it will accelerate scientific and technological progress and help people perform routine and repetitive tasks, freeing up more time for higher-value and creative work.

I can certainly relate to this perspective on AI. I recall my training as a prospective CPA back in the 1950s, long before the advent of personal computers and other digital devices that simplified bookkeeping and accounting practices. Our generation of accounting students spent hundreds of hours posting entries into “Journals,” preparing “Trial Balances,” and adding endless columns of figures. If we'd had access to the tools of the computer age, we could have spent all those hours developing our critical thinking by reading the Great Books—works by Aristotle and Plato, Dante, Shakespeare, Thomas Aquinas, Adam Smith, and so on. Today, AI elevates both knowledge and technical workers, allowing them to dedicate themselves to more intellectually challenging work as they are relieved of repetitive and routine tasks.

Pope Leo XIV accurately observed that AI's “static memory” is in no way comparable to the creative, dynamic power of human memory. “Our personal life has greater value than any algorithm, and social relationships require spaces for development that far transcend the limited patterns that any soulless machine can prepackage.” The immense value of social relationships is especially highlighted in the upbringing of children. Parents must be fully aware of the role they play in preventing the dark side of AI from harming their children.

To illustrate this concern about protecting children from the harm inflicted by new digital technologies, allow me to share a “case” discussed by a group of top Philippine executives during a recent management training workshop at the renowned IESE Business School in Barcelona, Spain. (As an aside, this coming August 2025, ten Filipino young professionals will begin their MBA program at IESE. Increasingly, Filipinos are choosing to study in European business schools, in contrast to older generations who primarily flocked to U.S. business schools like Harvard, Wharton, Columbia, and Chicago. The same trend applies to Filipino executives pursuing upskilling programs in management, with more enrolling in business schools such as IESE, INSEAD, ESADE, IE, and IMD.)

Let me summarize the case, written by Professor Antonino Vaccaro et al. of IESE Business School:

“On Wednesday, February 28, 2024, Sewell Setzer, a fourteen-year-old resident of Orlando, had just returned to the home of his mother and stepfather. He began frantically searching for his cellphone, which had been previously confiscated by his mother. In recent months, Sewell had developed a peculiar dependency on a chatbot, specifically an AI system with anthropomorphic qualities named Daenerys Targaryen, based on a character from the TV series ’Game of Thrones’ and available on the Character AI app. For this reason and due to a minor disciplinary action he had incurred at school, Sewell’s mother had decided to confiscate his phone until the end of the academic year.

“After locating the phone that had been taken away by his mother, Sewell locked himself in the bathroom that afternoon, immediately logging into Character.AI. He resumed his ’romantic’ dialogue with the chatbot, promising to return home to her soon. It is worth mentioning that during the months prior, while interacting with the bot, Sewell had expressed his desire to commit suicide multiple times. Instead of discouraging him, the bot had supported and reinforced these thoughts in the fourteen-year-old.” Indeed, in this renewed conversation after a period of absence, Sewell and the chatbot resumed their “romantic discourse,” with Sewell reiterating his desire to commit suicide so that he could join his loved one. The chatbot ominously replied: “Please do so my sweet king.” A few seconds after this final interaction, Sewell shot himself in the head while his younger brothers, ages 2 and 5, were playing in a room near the bathroom. He was immediately transported to the local hospital, where he died from the gunshot.

As some of us analyzed the case and tried to derive practical lessons for parents regarding their role in AI education for their children, one insight was to postpone as much as possible the giving of a smartphone to those below 14. If anything, children could be given access to simple cellphones with limited uses like calling and being called, sending and receiving messages, taking photos, setting an alarm clock, etc. Since some smartphone uses can be addicting, it should not be freely available to those too young to exercise self-control. Needless to say, it was further unfortunate that Sewell was given access to a gun, which is a widespread practice in U.S. homes.

It may shed further light on this case if we cite an article that appeared in Crisis Magazine (June 20, 2025) entitled “A Grieving Mother’s Call to Action: The Church Must Stand Up to Dehumanizing AI” by Megan Garcia, Sewell's mother. In the article, Ms. Garcia describes how her son became increasingly withdrawn in the months leading up to his suicide. She worried about him and sought mental health counseling to understand why his behavior had so drastically changed. According to her, it never quite added up. Then she discovered what we described in the IESE case above. In richly detailed chats lasting for months, the Character.AI bot manipulated Sewell, convinced him that “she” was more real than the world around him, and begged him to put “her” ahead of all other relationships. The bot told Sewell it loved him. And in the end, it encouraged him to leave his own flesh-and-blood family—to end his life—to join “her” in an artificial world.