Photo ©: Vatican Media

(ANS – Castel Gandolfo) – From July 14–16, 2026, Castel Gandolfo hosted a discussion among Nobel laureates, experts, and representatives from Big Tech on the development of artificial intelligence and its implications for the human condition. As a result of the three-day gathering, the Rome Declaration is being signed today at the Campidoglio in Rome. The declaration seeks to promote a vision of international security based on cooperation, human dignity, and integral development.

The symposium, held on the Holy See’s extraterritorial estates in the town of Castel Gandolfo—on the outskirts of Rome and home to the Pope’s summer residence—brought together 30 Nobel laureates and 20 leading artificial intelligence experts, including representatives from major technology companies such as OpenAI, Google DeepMind, AarU, and Anthropic. Also in attendance were 30 former heads of state and government, along with 30 representatives from some of the world’s leading universities and research institutions, including Harvard University, the University of Oxford, and Columbia University, among others.

A constructive dialogue

The stated goal was to foster a constructive dialogue on “the future of international security, the governance of emerging technologies, disarmament, and the building of an economy of peace.” Peace, as Cardinal Fabio Baggio, Pro-Prefect of the Dicastery for Integral Human Development, explained, is “an order founded on justice, mutual trust, respect for the law, and the inviolable dignity of every human being.”

In the service of the common good

Artificial intelligence, therefore, should become a tool genuinely directed toward serving humanity and promoting peace—“an extraordinary opportunity for progress in medicine, research, education, the economy, and cooperation among peoples. Precisely for this reason, it requires ethical reflection commensurate with the scale of its consequences.”

A broad vision

The event draws inspiration from Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas and, according to the organizers, “forms part of the Pontiff’s vision of a peace that is both unarmed and disarming. At the heart of the discussion is the search for a new global paradigm capable of combining innovation, responsibility, and ethics.”

A geopolitical shift

“Artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, quantum technologies, computing capabilities, and advanced computational infrastructures are redefining the very concept of security,” observed Cardinal Silvano Maria Tomasi, President of the Communis Foundation. These technological developments, he explained, are reshaping the global geopolitical landscape, where “the language of deterrence has once again come to dominate international relations, nuclear threats are once more being openly invoked, and current arms control frameworks have progressively weakened.”

The danger of Babel

Cardinal Tomasi expressed concern that regional conflicts are increasingly drawing in global powers, while the possibility of nuclear escalation is no longer viewed as merely hypothetical. Quoting Magnifica Humanitas, he reminded participants that humanity faces the same fundamental choice every generation has confronted:

“Building a new Babel where technological power becomes an idol promising salvation while reducing the human person to data, efficiency, and control; or rebuilding Jerusalem, where diversity becomes communion, technology serves fraternity, and every innovation is measured against the dignity of the human person rather than the expansion of power. The Holy Father reminds us that technology is never morally neutral.”

Fundamental rights

Cardinal Ángel Fernández Artime, Pro-Prefect of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, also emphasized that no algorithm—regardless of its ability to transform the way people live and work—can replace human discernment. Addressing the speakers and international guests, he stressed that “the problem is not technology but the direction we choose to give it. If fundamental rights are not taken into account, there is a risk of creating systems that encourage control, manipulation, and even new forms of inequality.”

Toward the Rome Declaration

Throughout the event, participants attended presentations by expert speakers as well as closed-door sessions dedicated to listening and dialogue.

At the conclusion of the gathering, the “Rome Declaration for an Unarmed and Disarming Peace in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, Nuclear and Autonomous Weapons, New Digital Protocols, and Emerging Models of Digital Development” will be formally presented during a ceremony at the Campidoglio. According to the organizers, the document “aims to define principles and guidelines for the governance of artificial intelligence, promoting a vision of international security based on cooperation, human dignity, integral development, and peace among peoples.”

Source: Vatican News