It may sound like an oxymoron, but the Vatican’s most important brain on the technology that most shapes our world today came from a medieval order.
ADVERTISEMENTBrother Paolo Benanti wears the plain brown robes of his medieval Franciscan order as he tackles one of the most pressing problems of contemporary times: how to govern artificial intelligence (AI) so that it enriches – not exploit – people’s lives.
Benanti is the Vatican’s point person on technology and has the ear of Pope Francis as well as some of Silicon Valley’s top engineers and executives.
An engineer by training, a doctor in moral theology and passionate about what he calls “the ethics of technology”, the 50-year-old Italian priest is invested with an urgent mission that he shares with Francis, who, in his message annual peace plan for 2024, pushed for an international treaty to ensure the ethical use of AI technology.
“What is the difference between a man who exists and a machine which works?” Benanti said in an interview with The Associated Press during a break at the Pontifical Gregorian University, where he teaches courses such as moral theology and bioethics to students preparing for the priesthood.
“This is perhaps the biggest question of our time, as we witness a challenge that deepens every day with a machine that becomes more human.”
AI Advisor
Benanti is a member of the United Nations Artificial Intelligence Advisory Council and head of an Italian government commission tasked with providing recommendations on how to protect journalism from fake news and other disinformation.
He is also a consultant to the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy for Life.
Benanti says he helps “better clarify the more technical terms for the Holy Father” during their meetings.
His knowledge came in handy during a 2023 meeting at the Vatican between Francis and Microsoft President Brad Smith that focused on how AI could help or harm humanity.
Francis and Smith had also discussed artificial intelligence “in the service of the common good” during a meeting a few years earlier, according to the Vatican.
With the papacy keenly attentive to those living on the margins of society, Francis has made clear his concern that AI technology could limit human rights, for example by negatively impacting demand a buyer’s mortgage, a migrant’s asylum application or assessing an offender’s likelihood of repeating a crime.
“It is clear that if we choose certain data that is not inclusive enough, we will have choices that are not inclusive,” said Benanti, whose religious order was founded in the early 13th century by St. Francis of Assisi, who renounced earthly life. wealth and promoted charitable works.
Microsoft first contacted Benanti several years ago to share its thoughts on the technology, the brother said.
In 2023, Smith did a podcast with Benanti in Rome, describing the brother as bringing “one of the most fascinating combinations in the world” in terms of his background in engineering, ethics and technology, to the AI debate.
Finding the right uses for AI
Benanti, who was a year away from earning his engineering degree at Rome’s Sapienza University when he abandoned that degree — along with his girlfriend — to join the Franciscans in his 20s, described how A.I. could be a “really powerful tool” to bring down drug costs and empower doctors to help more people.
But he also outlined the ethical implications of a technology that could have the same capabilities as a human — or perhaps even more.
“It’s not a problem of using (AI), but it’s a problem of governance,” the brother said. “And that’s where ethics comes in: finding the right level of use in a social context.”
Benanti noted that much of the data that powers AI is powered by low-wage workers, many of whom live in developing countries rooted in a history of colonialism and exploited labor.
ADVERTISEMENT“I don’t want this to be remembered as the season in which we extract cognitive resources from the Global South,” he said.
If we look at “the best tools we produce in AI” in the West, we see that AI is “trained with underpaid workers from former English-speaking colonies”.
How to govern AI is a question that countries around the world are trying to resolve. The European Union became a pioneer late last year when negotiators reached a deal paving the way for legal oversight of AI technology.
In Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who fears that AI will lead to job losses, will make technology a central theme at this year’s G7 summit, hosted in Italy.
As part of those efforts, Meloni met with Microsoft founder Bill Gates in Rome on Thursday, a meeting in which Benanti attended.
ADVERTISEMENTFor his part, the brother told AP that regulating artificial intelligence should not mean limiting its development.
“That means keeping them compatible with this fragile system that is democracy, which today seems to be the best system,” Benanti said.
