Pope’s Anti-AI Warnings May Be AI-Written, Detection Tool Claims
AI Detector Developer Pangram Labs’ browser extension tagged several posts from the Pope’s X account.
By Jason NelsonEdited by Guillermo JimenezApr 22, 2026Apr 22, 20262 min read
In brief
- Pangram Labs flagged several posts from Pope Leo XIV’s official X account as AI-generated.
- The company’s Chrome extension scans product reviews, social media posts, and new articles in real time.
- Researchers say AI-generated or AI-assisted text now appears on more than one-third of new websites.
Even the Pope’s warnings about artificial intelligence may have been written by artificial intelligence.
First reported by Wired, Pangram Labs, an AI-detection startup, said its updated Chrome extension flagged several posts from Pope Leo XIV’s official X account as likely AI-generated, including messages warning followers about AI’s effect on human thought and social structures.
One of those posts warned: “When simulation becomes the norm, it weakens the human capacity for discernment.”
“Clearly, he doesn't run his Twitter account himself,” Pangram Labs CEO Max Spero told Wired. “They have a social media person. But it's also obvious that they use at least some degree of AI.”
Pangram claims its detection model has a 99.98% accuracy rate and a false positive rate of one in 10,000. A December 2025 University of Chicago study ranked Pangram highest among tested AI detection tools and found its false positive rate was close to zero.
“Given that every detector is at least slightly imperfect, organizations still have to evaluate for themselves if and how to use them, trading off the potential for AI misuse with the risk of false accusations,” the study said.
Pangram Labs did not immediately respond to Decrypt’s request for comment, nor did representatives for the Vatican.
AI detection remains controversial, and false positives remain a concern across the industry. In 2024, AI detector ZeroGPT made waves online after it was revealed by Christopher Penn, Chief Data Scientist at Boston-based marketing analytics firm Trust Insight, to have labeled the U.S. Declaration of Independence 97.93% AI-generated.
“These tools are being used to do things like disqualify students, putting them on academic probation or suspension,” Penn told Decrypt at the time. That’s “a very high-risk application when, in the United States, a college education is tens of thousands of dollars a year,” he said.
According to Wired, Pangram’s extension also reportedly flagged posts from blue-check influencers on X, trending Substack writers, and a message from Apple CEO Tim Cook marking the company’s 50th anniversary.
The launch comes as concerns over AI-generated junk content continue to rise. Earlier this month, researchers at Stanford University, Imperial College London, and the Internet Archive found that AI-generated or AI-assisted text accounted for roughly 35% of newly published websites by mid-2025.
