“I’ll teach you differences,” declares the Duke of Kent in Shakespeare’s King Lear. The ability to discern potential for both beneficence and harm in the rise of intelligent machines was never more urgent. Pope Leo appears determined to set the pace. In his first official address to cardinals, he warned of the dangers AI posed to “human dignity, justice and labour.” Speaking later to journalists, he praised the “immense potential” of the technology while cautioning that it requires responsibility “to ensure that it can be used for the good of all.” Just as his namesake Pope Leo XIII promoted workers’ rights in the midst of a new machine age at the end of the 19th century, Leo XIV has established himself as a global moral leader in the face of burgeoning algorithmic technologies, warning of their dual aspects.