(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – National AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler has issued the following statement on Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, which focuses on the moral and practical danger of unregulated Artificial Intelligence (AI):

Pope Leo’s choice to issue his first encyclical on the threat of unregulated AI is a testament to the urgency of this issue for Working People. Workers are being surveilled, fired, hurt and have even died in workplaces that recklessly use AI without guardrails and Worker input. It’s clear if we don’t harness it properly, AI is the single biggest threat to Working People of our lifetime. This is what Pope Leo recognizes, echoing the same things I hear from Working People around the U.S. and globally. He names the ‘culture of power’ driving the AI arms race, the corporate greed that puts profit over people, and the dehumanization that working people feel every time they are told to trust untested AI technology over their own experience and skill - even when lives are on the line. The guardrails he calls for - ’responsible planning, the assessment of human and social impact, the inclusion of the most vulnerable’ - are the same principles for which the Labor Movement has advocated. Pope Leo writes: ‘Solidarity, then, is the concrete recognition that the future of each individual is connected to the future of all.’ The AFL-CIO and our 65 Affiliated Unions have and will continue to answer his call to defend the dignity of Working People.

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