Liz Shuler urged that workers must be included in decisions about artificial intelligence, praising Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical for centering humanity and pointing to labor–tech agreements as models for protecting jobs and rights.
Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, said AI poses the biggest challenge to the labor movement because of the threat to jobs and called for workers to have input and consent.
Shuler praised Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas for calling for human-centered AI and collaborative regulations among political, business and labor leaders.
She highlighted recent labor–tech agreements with Microsoft and the American Federation of Teachers as examples of how to protect workers and data in AI development.
# What happened
Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, spoke at a mid-September Vatican conference about organized labor's role in addressing social and ecological challenges, and delivered a blunt critique of some technology executives' approach to artificial intelligence. She said CEOs are making decisions that affect hundreds of millions of working people "without our input and consent," and called for workers to be seated at the table for AI policy and implementation.
# Why she spoke at the Vatican
Shuler framed the Catholic Church as a partner for labor because of its convening power and the moral argument that "humanity has to be at the center" of technological change. She pointed to Pope Leo XIV's encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, which examines humanity's place in the age of AI and warns of "a significant and rapid contraction in available jobs" and the need for shared regulations and protections.
# The labor stakes
Shuler made two connected warnings. First, AI threatens the availability of work in ways that could ripple through families, young people and local economies. Second, the economic and political power tied to AI development risks concentrating in a small group of executives. She summed that risk starkly: "If we don't do anything, seven billionaires — one trillionaire maybe — will be running our world." She called the pope's public stance courageous and said it sends a signal to those not yet engaged on the issue.
# Concrete examples she cited
Shuler pointed to existing agreements as models of how labor and business can cooperate over AI:
She said these arrangements offer an alternative to framing AI solely as an economic or geopolitical race, and they align with the church's call for human-centered development.
# The Vatican's message
Pope Leo XIV warned conference attendees that progress that fails people — where work loses dignity or technology deepens divisions — threatens humanity. His encyclical urged political, business and labor leaders to collaborate quickly on regulations and protections. Shuler described the encyclical as close to something labor could have written.
# What this means going forward
Speaking at UNESCO, the pope brought his AI agenda to France at a time when the global conversation over AI regulation is exploding, with several tech industry executives leading the charge.
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