# From campus to the Vatican, is an AI backlash growing stronger?

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-global-story-6677479/from-campus-to-the-vatican-is-an-ai-backlash-growing-stronger
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-global-story-6677479/from-campus-to-the-vatican-is-an-ai-backlash-growing-stronger.md
Podcast: [The Global Story](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-global-story-6677479)
Published: 2026-05-29T09:00:00+00:00
Episode link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct8m8s
Audio file: http://open.live.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/6/redir/version/2.0/mediaset/audio-nondrm-download-rss/proto/http/vpid/p0nnysl1.mp3
Processing state: not_requested
JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-global-story-6677479/episodes/from-campus-to-the-vatican-is-an-ai-backlash-growing-stronger
Duration seconds: 1615

## Resource

At the Vatican on Monday, Pope Leo XIV issued his first encyclical, a letter issued to the world’s bishops. In it, he criticised artificial intelligence and what he called the “culture of power” fuelling its rise, urging world leaders to regulate the technology more forcefully. The Pope’s scepticism towards AI does not exist in a vacuum. It comes after several weeks in which numerous commencement speakers championing artificial intelligence on US college campuses were booed by Gen Z graduates. Is a backlash to AI brewing? We speak to BBC religion editor Aleem Maqbool about the Pope’s AI-critical encyclical, and to Rachel Janfaza, founder of the Gen Z research firm The Up and Up, about why Gen Z’s relationship with AI is far more complicated than many think. Producer: Xandra Ellin, Cat Farnsworth, and Valerio Esposito Executive producer: James Shield Sound engineer: Travis Evans Senior news editor: China Collins (Photo: Pope Leo XIV during a meeting with Italian bishops in Vatican City, 28 May 2026. Credit: Vatican Media/EPA)

## Actions

- request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-global-story-6677479/episodes/from-campus-to-the-vatican-is-an-ai-backlash-growing-stronger/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.
- read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-global-story-6677479/from-campus-to-the-vatican-is-an-ai-backlash-growing-stronger.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.

A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed.

## Transcript

Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.