Peter Thiel slams pope’s AI encyclical as gift to Chinese Communist Party
Peter Thiel publicly criticized Pope Leo XIV's encyclical calling for AI regulation, arguing that placing limits on AI development would disadvantage Western nations while China continues to advance without similar constraints.
Why this matters: This is a familiar move: frame any regulation as surrender to a geopolitical rival, and the debate shifts from 'what rules make sense' to 'are you helping the enemy.' It works because it is not entirely wrong. But it also skips past the people who would actually live under unregulated AI. Thiel's argument treats the race itself as the only thing that matters. Whether citizens have rights inside that race is a separate question, and it keeps getting crowded out.
Who should care: Lawyers · Compliance · General readers · AI governance · Policy
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