Editing Magnifica Humanitas: A Plain-Language Overview (section)

== AI is a tool, not a person ==

Leo XIV makes a clear distinction between artificial intelligence and human intelligence.

AI systems can imitate certain operations associated with human intelligence. They may process enormous quantities of information, recognize patterns, generate language, solve particular problems, and perform some tasks faster or more accurately than a human being.

But this does not make them human persons.

AI does not live a human life.

It does not possess a body in the human sense.

It does not experience childhood.

It does not suffer, love, form friendships, raise children, grow old, repent, hope, worship, or assume moral responsibility.

It does not experience work from within.

It does not possess human conscience and freedom merely because its output resembles intelligent conversation.<ref name="MHAI">Leo XIV, ''Magnifica Humanitas'', especially nos. 97–103, on artificial intelligence, human intelligence, responsibility and governance.</ref>

For that reason, AI should not be treated as though it were a new kind of human being.

It is an extraordinarily powerful human-made tool.

That distinction matters because responsibility cannot simply be transferred from people to machines.