Pope Leo XIV has issued a warning about the dangers of artificial intelligence (AI) at the start of his four-day visit to France.

The pontiff cautioned against “losing our humanity amid a paradise of machines” in wide-ranging remarks to Church and state officials at the Élysée Palace, following an hour of talks with President Emmanuel Macron.

Leo made a similar warning earlier this year when he spoke of the need for AI to be “disarmed” in the first major teaching document of his papacy.

In his May appeal, he mentioned the slave trade in relation to AI, suggesting that the world was in danger of normalising the exploitation of people once again.

The highpoint of Leo’s visit to France is set to be a giant Mass attended by more than half a million people in Paris on Saturday, for which an altar has been built on the Place de la Concorde and a large area around the Champs-Élysées sealed off by police.

Large crowds are expected throughout the trip, reflecting an enthusiasm that the Church attributes to growing spirituality among the French and other Europeans.

He was greeted at Orly airport early on Friday by Macron, with the pair expected to deliver a speech later in the day in Metz.

Crowds were meanwhile gathering along a route to the Notre Dame, where the pontiff will later be driven in his popemobile.

The president will not be at any of the Pope’s Masses, largely to avoid breaching France’s strict separation of state and religion.

On Friday, Macron hailed Pope Leo’s visit to France as a “great honour”, stressing that French secularism “in no way negates religion”.

Leo said that “authentic secularity” should not exclude religion “from the public sphere or from education”.

In recent years, French politicians have often invoked France’s brand of secularism to justify bans on religious symbols, including Muslim women’s attire, in public spaces and schools.