Pope warns on AI as Marche factories weigh the cost of automation

Pope Leo XIV has issued his first encyclical, titled Magnifica Humanitas, in which he describes the development and deployment of artificial intelligence as a threat to human dignity, according to Project Syndicate. The Vatican's position mirrors that of his namesake, Pope Leo XIII, whose 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum sought to reconcile the Church with rapid industrialization. The new encyclical frames technological change as a central ethical concern for the Church and for believers and non-believers alike.

The timing of the Pope's intervention arrives as Italian manufacturers face a different kind of pressure: renewed demand for their goods, but the question of how to meet it without further automating their workforces. According to S&P Global's latest purchasing managers' index data reported by Forex Factory on June 1, Italian manufacturers signalled a boost in demand linked to safety stockpiling, with renewed growth in new orders fuelling a faster expansion in manufacturing output. The sector is expanding, but the path forward—whether through human labour or machine—remains contested.

In the Marche region, where small and medium-sized firms dominate the shoe, leather, and mechanical districts, the tension between growth and employment is acute. These family-owned manufacturers have long competed on craft and flexibility rather than scale, a model that has depended on skilled workers and local supply chains. The Pope's warning that AI threatens human dignity speaks to anxieties that run deeper than quarterly earnings: the survival of a way of making things that has defined communities for generations.