Deepfake chaos: Vatican warns of AI‑generated pope videos
The Vatican has issued a warning about fake videos featuring Pope Leo XIV circulating online. These videos, created by artificial intelligence, falsely attribute words to the Pope. This information was reported by the Vatican News service.
A video that claims to show Pope Leo XIV addressing the President of Burkina Faso, Ibrahim Traoré, is fraudulent. The 36-minute video was uploaded to YouTube and has already been viewed over a million times. The Pope never made those statements, and the material was manipulated with morphing technology.
Fake recordings online with Pope Leo XIV
The Vatican News service explains that artificial intelligence was used to sync the Pope’s lip movements with the generated words. This recording falsely implies that the Pope publicly responded to a letter from Traoré. YouTube has labeled the video as fictional, yet it remains accessible.
Experts warn that such materials could mislead the public, particularly if shared without proper context. This is another example of how deepfake technology can manipulate messages and create false narratives involving public figures.
Artificial intelligence and disinformation
The Vatican stresses this is not the only instance of fake recordings involving Pope Leo XIV. There is a YouTube channel featuring supposed sermons by the Pope, which are entirely AI-generated. The channel already has 18,300 subscribers and nearly 770,000 views.
The Vatican media reminds us that all official speeches and texts of Pope Leo XIV are available on vatican.va and the Vatican News portal. These are the only reliable sources of information about the Pope.
