VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Francis called on representatives of the world’s religions to unite behind the defense of human dignity in an age that will be defined by artificial intelligence.
“I ask you to show the world that we are united in calling for proactive engagement to protect human dignity in this new age of machines,” the pope wrote in a message to participants in a conference on AI ethics that welcomed representatives from 11 world religions.
Religious leaders representing Eastern religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, and Bahá’í, among others, as well as leaders of the three Abrahamic faiths, gathered in Hiroshima, Japan, for the conference titled “AI Ethics for Peace.” They also signed the Rome Call for AI Ethics, a document developed by the Pontifical Academy for Life that calls on signatories to promote an ethical approach to AI development.
Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, and the Italian government’s Ministry of Innovation signed the document. A July 10 press release from the academy said Franciscan Father Paolo Benanti, a professor of ethics at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, presented an addendum to the document in Hiroshima specifically focused on the ethical governance of generative AI—which can process, interpret, and produce human language. The addendum said generative AI requires sustained engagement to ensure its use for the good of humanity.
In his message to the conference released by the Vatican on July 10, Pope Francis stressed the “great symbolic importance” of the meeting of religious leaders in Hiroshima and underscored the increasingly central role that artificial intelligence technology plays in society.
“As we consider the complexity of the issues before us, recognizing the contribution of the cultural richness of peoples and religions in the regulation of artificial intelligence is key to the success of your commitment to the wise management of technological innovation,” he wrote.
Echoing his speech on artificial intelligence at the G7 summit in June, the pope asked participants to jointly push for a ban on lethal autonomous weapons, which “starts from an effective and concrete commitment to introduce ever greater and more appropriate human control.”
“No machine should ever choose to take the life of a human being,” he wrote.
Opening the conference on July 9, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the academy, said that artificial intelligence “must be guided so that its potential serves the good from the moment of its conception.”
“In Hiroshima, a place of the highest symbolic value, we strongly invoke peace and we ask that technology be a vector of peace and reconciliation between peoples,” he said. “We are here, together, to say loud and clear that coming together and acting together is the only possible solution.”
