Pope Leo XIV Criticizes NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang for Opposing AI Regulation

[Financial News] Pope Leo XIV made the unusual statement of criticizing NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang for downplaying the risks of artificial intelligence (AI). His remarks urged that warnings about the threats AI could pose to humanity be taken seriously.
On the 28th (local time), the Financial Times (FT) reported that, aboard the plane returning to Rome after his visit to France, the pope said, "Jensen Huang is someone who argues that AI development should not be subject to any restrictions or government regulation," adding, "The concerns raised by AI experts and specialized researchers should be taken seriously."
Regarding NVIDIA's recent announcement of an AI-agent security tool based on its chips, the pope questioned Huang's sincerity about safety. NVIDIA said the security tool could have prevented the Hugging Face hacking incident in July, among others. However, the pope took a jab at Huang's opposition to regulation itself, separate from the announcement of technical safeguards.
The FT reported that the pope's remarks demonstrated the deep concern global leaders have about AI safety, given that they were directed at the head of the world's most valuable company. Recently, AI company leaders such as OpenAI's Sam Altman and Anthropic's Dario Amodei also attended the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), where they stressed the need for global cooperation and regulation.
By contrast, Huang, together with United States President Donald Trump, has dismissed calls for AI regulation and for slowing the pace of development. President Trump has called claims that AI threatens humanity a "fabricated threat" and rejected international efforts to impose controls. Huang likewise maintains that "the voluntary responsibility of industry groups and companies is sufficient, and no new laws or regulations are necessary."
The pope added that anxiety about AI is "not 'fake news,' as someone put it," saying, "It is not as though we should be so frightened that we cannot sleep, but this is an issue that everyone needs to sit down and discuss seriously."
Pope Leo XIV, a Chicago-born American who ascended to the papacy last year, has shown sustained interest in AI technology. In an encyclical issued in May, he noted that AI is not morally neutral and said that "disarmament" through strong regulation is necessary to ensure that it serves humanity.


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