The Lima Declaration
on the AI Middle Way

Declaration of

The Lima Declaration on the AI Middle Way

Lima, Peru — 20 August 2026

We, the undersigned — convened in Lima at the invitation of the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, in fellowship with the AI Middle Way Coalition and in dialogue with representatives of the Holy See, the Government of Peru, the academy, civil society, and the indigenous nations of the Andes and Amazon — declare the following:

We affirm that the development and deployment of artificial intelligence is among the defining questions of our century, and that the answers given to this question will shape the dignity, livelihood, and spiritual horizon of generations not yet born.

We refuse the two extremes that have come to dominate the global conversation: the utopian acceleration that treats AI as inevitable progress, and the catastrophist retreat that treats AI as inevitable ruin. Between these poles, we walk a Middle Way — un camino del medio — that subordinates intelligence to consciousness, technology to human flourishing, and innovation to the common good.

We recognize that Peru carries a distinctive vocation in this global moment. We are a plurinational republic shaped by Catholic moral imagination and Andean cosmological wisdom; by the Spanish language and by Quechua, Aymara, and the languages of our Amazonian peoples; by mountains, deserts, and rainforests that we are called to steward not as resources but as relations. This synthesis is not a burden to be reconciled. It is a gift to be offered.

We commit, in the spirit of this Middle Way, to the following principles:

1. That the measure of AI in Peru shall be its contribution to the flourishing of the lower-middle-class majority — to dignified work, accessible health, quality education, and effective public administration — and not to the convenience of those who already enjoy these in abundance.
2. That AI systems deployed in Peru shall honor and strengthen the linguistic and cultural diversity of our peoples, including the active development of AI in Quechua, Aymara, and Amazonian languages, and shall be designed in dialogue with the communities they are intended to serve.
3. That AI shall be placed in the service of environmental stewardship — of glacier monitoring, watershed management, climate adaptation, biodiversity protection, and the defense of indigenous territorial rights — in fidelity to the principle of ayni, reciprocity between humans and the more-than-human world.
4. That the governance of AI in Peru shall be holistic and interministerial, refusing the silos that have weakened AI governance in larger nations, and shall include the meaningful participation of religious communities, indigenous authorities, civil society, the academy, and the private sector.
5. That Peru shall convene an Andean regional conversation on AI — with Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, and Chile — affirming that the Andes constitute a shared civilizational and ecological space whose AI future must be charted in common.
6. That the AI Middle Way in Peru shall remain in dialogue with the Holy See, drawing on the moral and pastoral teaching of Pope Leo XIV regarding human dignity and the future of work, and offering Peru as a model for the deployment of AI in lower-income nations across the world.
7. That Peru shall serve as the Declaration Anchor Partner of the AI Middle Way Coalition, in fellowship with Thailand, Indonesia, Mexico, and the nations of the Coalition's expanding architecture, contributing its distinct moral and cultural inheritance to the shared work of charting a humane AI future.

We invite the Government of Peru, the universities of Peru, the religious and indigenous communities of Peru, and the peoples of Peru to take up this Declaration as a living instrument — to debate it, to amend it, to strengthen it, and to enact it in policy, in practice, and in prayer.

We do this in the conviction that consciousness must direct intelligence, never the reverse; that the Middle Way is not a compromise but a wisdom; and that Peru, in this moment, has something irreplaceable to offer the world.

Signed at Lima, the twentieth day of August, in the year two thousand twenty-six.