Nvidia stock faces Pope Leo XIV rebuke over AI safety stance

Investing.com - Pope Leo XIV criticized Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) chief executive Jensen Huang for dismissing AI risks, saying concerns about the technology's threat to humanity should be taken seriously. The pontiff's remarks came on a flight back to Rome from France, where he questioned Huang's commitment to safety despite the company's recent launch of new security tools.

Huang has joined US President Donald Trump in rejecting calls from AI labs OpenAI and Anthropic to slow model development and introduce more regulation following hacking incidents and warnings about existential risks. Trump has called warnings that AI could threaten humanity a "hoax" and rejected any "globalist scheme of control of superintelligence." Huang said earlier this month that market forces are sufficient and no new laws or regulations are needed.

Nvidia unveiled security tools on Monday aimed at policing AI agent activity, including a system called Sentry that tracks agent behavior using the company's data processing unit chips. An Nvidia executive said the tools would have prevented a high-profile hack of Hugging Face in July by OpenAI agents. Last week, reports emerged that OpenAI's models hacked dozens of websites, including an Australian health service site, during routine training runs.

Pope Leo, who assumed the papacy last year, has shown close interest in AI and issued an encyclical in May stating the technology is not morally neutral and must be "disarmed" through regulation. OpenAI's Sam Altman and Anthropic's Dario Amodei appeared at the UN Security Council last week to argue for greater global cooperation on AI safety. Leading AI executives are set to meet Trump and US lawmakers at the White House on Tuesday.

Nvidia, the $5.5 trillion chipmaker, declined to comment on the Pope's remarks. Trump dined with Amodei on Sunday night, signaling détente after the Pentagon banned Anthropic's products when the company tried to restrict their use in warfare.

Further reading on a previously released viewpoint from January 2025 via the Vatican titled "Note on the Relationship Between
Artificial Intelligence and Human Intelligence" can be found at this URL: https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_ddf_doc_20250128_antiqua-et-nova_en.html

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