By Carol Glatz
VATICAN CITY — Ways must be found to ensure artificial intelligence benefits everyone and protects the environment, given the high amounts of energy consumed by data centers, Pope Francis told leaders at a global meeting on AI.
There is also a great need to secure and safeguard a place for “proper human control over the choices made by artificial intelligence programs,” he said in a written message to French President Emmanuel Macron, who was co-hosting with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi the “Artificial Intelligence Action Summit” in Paris Feb. 10-11.
“I am convinced that, lacking such control, artificial intelligence, albeit an ‘exciting’ new tool, could show its most ‘fearsome’ side by posing a threat to human dignity,” he said in the message, released by the Vatican Feb. 11.
Heads of state, government leaders, experts, entrepreneurs and representatives from nongovernmental organizations from nearly 100 countries were invited to the Grand Palais to seek to make sure the science, solutions and standards of AI truly serve the public interest. Representing the Vatican at the summit were Archbishop Paul Gallagher, Vatican foreign minister, and Bishop Paul Tighe, secretary of the Dicastery for Culture and Education.
According to the French president’s website, the summit’s aims included: sharing best practices and challenges of AI technologies; reducing the “digital divide” and fostering open access to “independent, safe and reliable artificial intelligence for the many”; developing a more sustainable AI ecosystem given the current “untenable trajectory when it comes to energy use”; and ensuring “global governance of artificial intelligence is effective and inclusive.”
In his message to Macron, Pope Francis encouraged “all stakeholders,” including the poor, the powerless and others, to participate and be part of the regulation of artificial intelligence.
“I trust that the Paris summit will work for the creation of a platform of public interest on artificial intelligence so that every nation can find in artificial intelligence an instrument for its development and its fight against poverty, but also for the protection of its local cultures and languages,” he wrote.
