Hello and welcome to the Times Tech podcast where we unpack how technology is reshaping business, culture, and everyday life.

I am Danny Fortin out here in Silicon Valley.

Katie isn't here this week, but stepping in is another brilliant member of the tech team here. My colleague Mark

Selman, technology correspondent for The Times. Hello. It's good to be back. It's great to have

you. Good sir. Today we have a few light subjects. We're talking about the partnership in the world

of tech between Anthropic and the Catholic

Church. That's right. This week, Pope Leo presented a major statement on AI at the Vatican,

alongside one of the co-founders of the AI company Anthropic. And we'll be digging into

what was said and why it matters.

Plus, we'll be talking about why social media is as dangerous to your kids, apparently, as smoking or not wearing a seatbelt.

And later on, we'll be hearing from the CEO of Proxima Fusion, a German startup trying to

provide limitless clean energy by recreating the very same

reaction that powers the sun. We'll find out how they do it and how far away this technology

is from being a reality. But first, let's talk about that strange partnership between Silicon

Valley and the Vatican.

Yes, this does it, this gives these a real sense of like, you know, truth is stranger than fiction.

So Pope Leo, who is the first head of the Catholic Church from America, has become the latest

voice to join the debate over AI. And he's just released the first encyclical of his papacy, which is a major

teaching document in which he has warned about the dangers of AI and what it poses to humanity

if left unchecked. And speaking at a Vatican conference, he warned the AI risks becoming,

in his words, a quote, instrument of domination,

exclusion, and death in the hands of big tech.

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