Pope Leo: AI “Must Be Disarmed”

In his first encyclical, Leo blasts Big Tech and AI. Plus, a few short items, including my appearance on The Market House with Maggie Lake, and shoutouts to Roger Pielke Jr. and the Energy Bad Boys.

Pope Leo XIV signed the encyclical on AI earlier this month. Credit: Vatican media/AFP/Getty Images.

Ted Gioia is a very successful writer on Substack. He has 290,000 subscribers and is ranked number one in the music category. While I dig his music writing, his cultural analysis may be even better. Last December, Gioia spotlighted the anger toward Big Tech and AI and predicted that the “Tech backlash might just be the biggest issue of 2026.” He continued, saying that in the past, Big Tech “simply ignored critics” and instead focused on lobbying politicians. “That’s unlikely to work in this supercharged environment. Sooner or later, the tech power brokers will need to engage with their critics.”

Gioia’s prediction was spot on.

Last Friday, he published “Anti-AI Laws Now Get Unanimous Support From Left & Right.” In that article, he noted that a bill, the GUARD Act, written by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and aimed at protecting children from harmful content produced by AI chatbots, was recently passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee on a unanimous vote. Indeed, the opposition to Big Tech is uniting some strange political bedfellows, including Hawley on the Right and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on the Left.

Gioia wrote that the AI backlash is now “a huge national issue.” He continued, writing:

Silicon Valley has totally lost public support, and now will get punished brutally with legislation. But litigation will be just as painful... They will deserve every spanking they get — because they are ruthlessly force-feeding AI on an unwilling public for financial gain. And this is now obvious to every impartial observer.

As I’ve stated many times, I’ve never seen anything like the public opposition to data centers. All across the country, people across the political spectrum are banding together to fight data centers. I’m documenting that backlash in the new — and free — Data Center Rejection Database. But the numbers in the database don’t fully reflect the opposition because many projects are being withdrawn before they can be rejected.

That’s what happened earlier this month in Gardner, Kansas, where Beale Infrastructure pulled its data center project after 100 people attended a Gardner City Council meeting, and “more than 30 people spoke against the proposal.”

And now, Pope Leo XIV is weighing in. Today, he released his first encyclical. It’s on AI, and it’s a doozy.