Cardinal Bo to legislators: Work toward ban on autonomous lethal weapons

By Deborah Castellano Lubov

“By permitting algorithms to discreetly pre-package what our citizens read, purchase, believe, and value, we are systematically infantilizing entire societies.”

Cardinal Charles Maung Bo, Archbishop of Yangon and President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Myanmar, gave this warning in his keynote address to Christian lawmakers and political leaders gathered in Assisi on Monday for the event “The Urgent Call for Christian Leaders to be Effective Peacemakers.”

Cardinal Bo’s keynote focused on “The Urgent Call for Christian Leaders to be Christ-Centered Peacemakers in the Digital Era,” bringing together the event’s themes of human dignity, artificial intelligence, and peace.

The Cardinal warned of the psychological toll of an unguided technological transition, saying that society risks “conditioning an entire generation to substitute rational, moral judgment with addictive, predictive feedback loops.”

“This is a perilous path that leads to a winter of democracy and the emergence of autocracy with catastrophic consequences,” he said.

Rejecting automated warfare

Cardinal Bo called for a complete rejection of war and the automation of slaughter, warning that artificial intelligence risks lowering the moral threshold for violence.

Machines, he said, “cannot possess the right intention or comprehend grief, mercy, or the sacred value of human life,” stressing they “can only execute statistical optimization.”

“To automate the battlefield,” he said, “is to lower the moral threshold for violence, stripping conflict of human conscience and turning our sons, daughters, and citizens into bloodless data points.”

“Therefore, as representatives of the people,” he said, “your mandate is clear: you must champion an immediate, binding international ban on fully autonomous lethal weapons.”

In an era uniquely troubled by global war, civic unrest, and economic upheaval, Cardinal Bo said Christian leaders are called to pursue an alternative path centered on peace and justice.

“Peace is not merely the absence of war; as Pope Leo XIV beautifully states, ‘peace is justice at work,’” he said.

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Prosperity and human dignity

Finally, Cardinal Bo identified prosperity for all as another essential goal, stressing that technology must serve human beings rather than reduce them to commodities.

True prosperity, he said, “demands that technology elevates human creativity and alleviates dangerous labor without turning human beings into disposable cogs.”

The Cardinal also observed that many AI technology companies are seeking guidance and even guardrails.

“That is our task,” he said.

In a moment of striking humility, he said some technology executives have “openly welcomed the Church’s moral intervention” and “are looking to outsiders—to philosophers, to spiritual leaders, and most importantly, to you, the elected legislators—to draw the hard moral boundaries that they legally and commercially cannot draw for themselves.”

Tech leaders looking for guidance

The architects of the digital future, Cardinal Bo said, are asking for governance and acknowledging that while they understand the technology, they do not have all the answers concerning human dignity.

“If you refuse to regulate, if you accept the myth of technological inevitability, you are abdicating your sovereign duty to the people who elected you.”

Calling on lawmakers to stand up as true leaders, Cardinal Bo urged them to “establish binding legal guardrails, demand corporate transparency, reject the automation of human slaughter, and ensure that technology remains entirely subservient to the magnificent humanity that God has entrusted to our care.”