Pope Francis expressed his concerns over artificial intelligence (AI) and what it is capable of.
On Tuesday, the Vatican released a message on behalf of Francis, 86, about the technology ahead of World Day of Peace set to take place on New Year’s Day. The message’s theme for the “Catholic feast day dedicated to universal peace on the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God” is “Artificial Intelligence and Peace.”
“The remarkable advances made in the field of artificial intelligence are having a rapidly increasing impact on human activity, personal and social life, politics and the economy,” the statement noted.
The statement informed about Francis’ call to seek an “open dialogue” about “the meaning of these new technologies, endowed with disruptive possibilities and ambivalent effects.”
“He recalls the need to be vigilant and to work so that a logic of violence and discrimination does not take root in the production and use of such devices, at the expense of the most fragile and excluded: injustice and inequalities fuel conflicts and antagonisms,” the statement continued.
Furthermore, Francis urged for the use and concept of artificial intelligence to be used “in a responsible way, so that it may be at the service of humanity and the protection of our common home, requires that ethical reflection be extended to the sphere of education and law.”
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The statement concluded, “The protection of the dignity of the person, and concern for a fraternity effectively open to the entire human family, are indispensable conditions for technological development to help contribute to the promotion of justice and peace in the world.”
According to National Today, World Day of Peace started in 1967 when Pope Paul VI declared that “the world needs to be sensitized” and urged for “peace and understanding.”
“Peace cannot be based on a false rhetoric of words which are welcomed because they answer to the deep, genuine aspirations of humanity, but which can also serve, and unfortunately have sometimes served, to hide the lack of true spirit and of real intentions for peace, if not indeed to mask sentiments and actions of oppression and party interests,” he wrote in a message on January 1968, via the Vatican.
