ISD CEO Sasha Havlicek was honoured to join ISD UK board member and founder of the We-Protect Global Alliance Baroness Joanna Shields OBE and other experts in a papal audience with Pope Leo XIV earlier in November where hespoke powerfully about the need to protect children in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). 

The Pope was addressing participants of the High-Level Meeting on Child Dignity and Artificial Intelligence hosted by the Vatican and organised by the Fondazione Child ETS and the Child Dignity Alliance. The event brought together world technology leaders and experts to examine the mounting risks AI poses to young people’s safety and wellbeing.  

In her panel intervention detailing urgent measures needed to stem the tide of harms, Sasha pointed to ISD’s researchevidencing the many ways in which malign actors—child predators, unscrupulous commercial interests, authoritarianstates, hate and extremist groups—have exploited the online ecosystem and increasingly generative AI to advance their goals with dangerous effect. She noted that some of the most potentially harmful features and content are too often served up to the most vulnerable users—including teens and children—despite policies to prevent this. 

“AI represents great opportunities but as some of our research at ISD shows, it could be detrimental if we allow a repeat of the mistakes we made with social media,” she said. “Moral courage and leadership are essential if we are to stave off the effects of what, at their worst, are weapons of mass manipulation. This is why today’s convening and the focus of the Pope on this challenge is so important.”  

Pope Leo XIV underlined the urgency in his own address: “Children and adolescents are particularly vulnerable to manipulation through AI algorithms that can influence their decisions and preferences. It is essential that parents and educators be aware of these dynamics, and that tools be developed to monitor and guide young people’s interactions with technology.”

At the high-level meeting’s closing panel, alongside Shawnna Hoffman (CEO of the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children), Dana Humaid (President of the Interfaith Alliance for Safer Communities) and Andrea Tornielli (Editorial Director of the Dicastery for Communication of the Holy See), Sasha highlighted ISD’s ongoing work to confront the societal risks and ethical questions posed by AI and other forms of manipulation. ISD will take this momentum forward through a major line of AI research and through our ongoing digital literacy and policy work.

The audience took place at the Vatican and was held at the Palazzo della Cancelleria.