Pope Francis launched “a provocation” about artificial intelligence or AI and questioned: “Are we sure we want to continue calling something that is not intelligence ‘intelligence’?”, in his speech to the participants of the conference of the Fundación Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice.
The Holy Father noted that this question about artificial intelligence “is a provocation. Let us think and ask ourselves if improperly using this very important, very human word is not having already given in to technocratic power.”
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This was indicated by Pope Francis this Saturday, June 22, in his speech at the Apostolic Palace of the Vatican, to the participants of the conference of the aforementioned foundation, which has reflected in Rome since June 20 on the topic “Artificial intelligence and the technocratic paradigm: How to promote the well-being of humanity, care for nature and a world at peace.
7 points to consider about artificial intelligence (AI) from a quote by Stephen Hawking
In his speech, Pope Francis recalled a quote from Stephen Hawking – the famous and now deceased atheist astrophysicist who in 2016, in the Vatican, recognized that the father of the Big Bang theory is the priest Georges Lemaitre – who warned about the advance of artificial intelligence to the point that human beings “could not compete and would be surpassed.”
In that sense and when asked about the usefulness of AI, the Holy Father proposed these seven points for reflection:
1. “The delicate and strategic issue of responsibility for decisions made using AI must be deepened: this aspect challenges several branches of philosophy and law, in addition to more specific disciplines,” said Pope Francis.
2. “Effective regulation is necessary to stimulate ethical innovation useful to the progress of humanity and to avoid or limit unwanted effects.”
3. The world of education and communication “should have a coordinated process to increase knowledge and awareness of how to correctly use AI, and thus be able to transmit to new generations, from childhood, the critical capacity for this instrument” .
4. “The effects of AI in the world of work must be assessed” to have “a professional requalification process” and “facilitate the relocation of laid-off people to other activities.”
5. and 6. It is necessary to “carefully examine the negative and positive effects of AI in the field of security”; and in “the relational and cognitive capacity of people and their behavior.”
7. Finally, Pope Francis highlighted, “it is necessary to remember the enormous consumption of energy to develop AI, while humanity faces a delicate energy transition.”
Walter Sanchez Silva
I have been a husband since 2008. My wife and I have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before he was born. Since I joined ACI Prensa in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Cologne, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and of Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the Family synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Synodality, in 2023. I closely follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers persecution from the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as current ecclesiastical events in the region.