Vatican bishop at Seoul conference warns AI could make all humanity “socially vulnerable” unless it serves the common good and protects the marginalized.
Newsroom (11/11/2025 Gaudium Press ) A senior Catholic bishop representing the Vatican has issued a stark warning that unchecked artificial intelligence risks rendering not just the economically poor but all of humanity “socially vulnerable,” potentially eroding faith in God and reducing human beings to mere extensions of machines.
Speaking at the 10th Seoul Future Conference, Bishop Linus Lee Seong-hyo, auxiliary bishop of Suwon and a member of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Culture and Education, delivered a paper titled “Dignity and Participation of the Socially Vulnerable in the AI Era.”
“Humans who reshape themselves around machines lose faith in God’s existence and no longer feel themselves to be God’s creatures,” Bishop Lee declared. “Humanity must cultivate deep spiritual strength and inner resilience” to resist this dehumanization.
The prelate, who also heads the Diocese of Masan, drew heavily on the recent Vatican document Antiqua et Nova (The Old and the New), jointly issued by the Dicasteries for the Doctrine of the Faith and for Culture and Education. He quoted its assertion that “the design, implementation, and use of AI systems must always serve humanity and the common good,” adding that “how we include the most marginalized and vulnerable is the measure of our humanity.”
Bishop Lee warned that in a data-driven society, AI systems risk evaluating human worth primarily by productive capacity and economic utility, disproportionately favoring the wealthy in critical sectors such as healthcare, education, and employment.
“As AI advances, the dignity of the socially vulnerable will be the first to face threats,” he said.
Yet the bishop also highlighted AI’s transformative potential for good, describing it as “a remarkable opportunity to lower learning barriers” through personalized education tools and to provide “early diagnosis and remote care for the elderly and disabled.”
The three-day Seoul Future Conference, themed around human-centered artificial intelligence (AX), featured prominent international voices including Ha Jung-woo, senior presidential secretary for AI under the South Korean administration; Lin Ying-ping, former vice minister of Taiwan’s Ministry of Science and Technology; Ogata Tetsuya, president of the Japan AI Robot Association; and acclaimed science-fiction writer Chen Xianlan.
Sessions explored topics ranging from “Humanoids Hand in Hand with Humanity: The Intersection of Technology and Emotion” to “The Intelligence of AI Nations: A New Framework for Technological Society Policy.”
Bishop Lee emphasized that the Catholic Church is deliberately adopting “a more integrated and inclusive perspective” across theology, ethics, education, and social doctrine to ensure the socially vulnerable are not left behind in the AI era.
His intervention adds a distinctly spiritual and anthropological voice to Asia’s rapidly growing AI policy debate, insisting that technological progress must remain anchored in transcendent human dignity and the common good if it is to benefit all humanity rather than only a privileged few.
- Raju Hasmukh with files from UCA News
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