CNN reports:

Billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel delivered a series of provocative warnings and predictions about the future of artificial intelligence and the West on Tuesday, accusing Pope Leo XIV of inadvertently serving as a “Chinese communist agent” by calling for AI regulation. In his remarks at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado, he also warned of a “democratic-socialist takeover” of the United States’ Democratic Party.

Thiel, a co-founder of Palantir and PayPal, was an early supporter of President Donald Trump in Silicon Valley. He also helped launch Vice President JD Vance’s career: Vance worked at Mithril Capital, an investment firm Thiel co-founded, before Thiel backed his transition into politics. He delivered his remarks at a nonrecorded panel alongside the political scientist Francis Fukuyama. Reporters were allowed to take notes on the proceedings.

During the event, Thiel took direct aim at the Vatican, accusing Pope Leo XIV — the first pope from the United States — of unintentionally advancing Chinese interests by pushing for stronger international oversight of artificial intelligence.

In May, Leo used his first encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas” (“Magnificent Humanity”), to declare that artificial intelligence “must be disarmed” and call for greater international regulation of the technology.

Because the pope’s message could influence some Americans, but is unlikely to be heeded by people in China, Thiel argued, the encyclical threatened to slow down only one side of the “race between the US and China” to advance AI.

In his own view, Thiel said, that means Leo is “working for the Chinese Communists.” The Aspen audience received his characterization of the pope as a Chinese agent with laughter.

The Vatican did not respond to a request for comment.

Friction between the tech billionaire and the Vatican is not new. In March, Thiel gave an invitation-only lecture series on the Antichrist in Rome, just blocks away from the Holy See. The lectures reportedly unnerved the Vatican and prompted two Catholic universities to publicly state that they were not involved in hosting the events.

Thiel has argued that the Antichrist could manifest not as an individual but as a world government that seizes power by promising to protect humanity against existential threats such as AI or global warming. [Continue reading…]