Pope Leo XIV’s AI Encyclical May Have Been Partially Written by AI, Detector Claims
An analysis posted on the forum LessWrong by Linch Zhang suggests that portions of Pope Leo XIV's latest encyclical about artificial intelligence's impact on humanity may have been generated by AI. The analysis, which relied on the widely used AI detector Pangram, found that certain paragraphs of the document titled "Magnifica Humanitas" scored between 40 percent and 100 percent probability of being written by AI.
The Analysis and Its Findings
Linch Zhang, whose work was published on the LessWrong forum, examined the text of Pope Leo XIV's encyclical "Magnifica Humanitas," which addresses the impact of AI on humanity. Using Pangram, a popular AI detection tool, Zhang determined that specific paragraphs in the document showed a likelihood of AI authorship ranging from 40 percent to 100 percent. The analysis did not specify which paragraphs fell at the lower or higher end of that scale, but it flagged the entire text as potentially influenced by AI generation.
The Encyclical's Subject Matter
The encyclical itself, "Magnifica Humanitas," is a formal papal document focused on the ethical and societal implications of artificial intelligence for humanity. Pope Leo XIV released the encyclical to address concerns about AI's growing role in daily life, labor, and moral decision-making. The document's own subject matter—AI's impact on humanity—makes the detection claim particularly ironic, as it suggests the Vatican may have used the very technology it was scrutinizing.
Response and Implications
Neither the Vatican nor Pope Leo XIV has officially commented on the analysis or the Pangram results. The findings have sparked debate in tech and religious circles about the authenticity of the encyclical's authorship and the reliability of AI detectors like Pangram. Critics note that such tools can produce false positives, especially with formal or structured writing styles common in papal documents. However, the specific percentages cited by Zhang have not been independently verified.
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- Date: May 26, 2026