Pope Francis on Thursday called for a global treaty to make sure artificial intelligence is developed and used ethically, arguing that the risks of technology lacking human values of compassion, mercy, morality and forgiveness are too great.
Francis added his voice to increasing calls for binding, global regulation of AI in his annual message for the World Day of Peace, which the Catholic Church celebrates each Jan. 1. The Vatican released the text of the message on Thursday.
For Francis, the appeal is somewhat personal: Earlier this yr, an AI-generated image of him wearing a luxury white puffer jacket went viral, showing just how quickly realistic deepfake imagery can spread online.
The pope’s message was released just days after European Union negotiators secured provisional approval on the world’s first comprehensive AI rules which might be expected to function a gold standard for governments considering their very own regulation.
Artificial intelligence has captured world attention over the past yr because of breathtaking advances by cutting-edge systems like OpenAI’s ChatGPT which have dazzled users with the power to provide human-like text, photos and songs. But the technology has also raised fears concerning the risks the rapidly developing technology poses to jobs, privacy and copyright protection and even human life itself.
Francis acknowledged the promise AI offers and praised technological advances as a manifestation of the creativity of human intelligence, echoing the message the Vatican delivered at this yr’s U.N. General Assembly where a number of world leaders raised the promise and perils of the technology.
But his recent peace message went further and emphasized the grave, existential concerns which were raised by ethicists and human rights advocates concerning the technology that guarantees to remodel on a regular basis life in ways in which can disrupt all the things from democratic elections to art.
He insisted that the technological development and deployment of AI must keep foremost concerns about guaranteeing fundamental human rights, promoting peace and guarding against disinformation, discrimination and distortion.
His biggest alarm was dedicated to using AI within the armaments sector, which has been a frequent focus of the Jesuit pope who has called even traditional weapons makers “merchants of death.”
He noted that distant weapons systems had already led to a “distancing from the immense tragedy of war and a lessened perception of the devastation attributable to those weapons systems and the burden of responsibility for his or her use.”
“The unique capability for moral judgment and ethical decision-making is greater than a posh collection of algorithms, and that capability can’t be reduced to programming a machine,” he wrote.
He called for “adequate, meaningful and consistent” human oversight of Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (or LAWS), arguing that the world has no need for brand spanking new technologies that merely “find yourself promoting the folly of war.”
On a more basic level, he warned concerning the profound repercussions on humanity of automated systems that rank residents or categorize them. He noted that such technology could determine the reliability of an applicant for a mortgage, the best of a migrant to receive political asylum or the possibility of reoffending by someone previously convicted of a criminal offense.
“Algorithms must not be allowed to find out how we understand human rights, to put aside the essential human values of compassion, mercy and forgiveness, or to eliminate the potential of a person changing and leaving his or her past behind,” he wrote.
For Francis, the difficulty hits at a few of his priorities as pope to denounce social injustices, advocate for migrants and minister to prisoners and people on the margins of society.
The pope’s message didn’t delve into details of a possible binding treaty aside from to say it have to be negotiated at a worldwide level, to each promote best practices and stop harmful ones. Technology corporations alone can’t be trusted to control themselves, he said.
He repurposed arguments he has used before to denounce multinationals which have ravaged Earth’s national resources and impoverished the Indigenous peoples who live off them.
Freedom and peaceful coexistence are threatened “at any time when human beings yield to the temptation to selfishness, self-interest, the will for profit and the thirst for power,” he wrote.
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Kelvin Chan contributed from London.
