Pope Francis met briefly with Chuck Robbins, CEO of Cisco Systems – the US digital communications conglomerate – after Robbins signed the “Rome Call for AI Ethics”, a project coordinated by the Pontifical Academy for life.
Artificial intelligence “is no longer a subject reserved for experts, and it is more urgent than ever to reflect on the ethics of its development,” said Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Academy and its RenAIssance Foundation. , which promotes projects dealing with the ethics of artificial intelligence. AI and its impact.
Franciscan Father Paolo Benanti, a professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and a member of the United Nations Artificial Intelligence Advisory Council, also attended the signing ceremony at the Vatican on April 24. Benanti has become a leading voice on AI issues and a global ambassador for the Catholic Church. advocacy for the ethical development of AI.
Launched in 2020, the Rome Call initially brought together the Pontifical Academy, leaders of Microsoft and IBM – two of the world’s leading developers of artificial intelligence software – the Italian government and the Food Organization of the United Nations and agriculture to promote ethical choices in the development of technology. , legal standards to regulate it, and education efforts to help people understand artificial intelligence and its role in a wide range of applications.
Other businesses, governments, universities and religious leaders have signed the call, pledging to ensure that “humans and nature are at the heart of how digital innovation is developed” and that they are ” supported rather than gradually replaced by technologies that behave like rational actors.” but are in no way human.
The signatories are also pushing for the development of “algorethics,” an ethical framework aimed at ensuring that algorithms used to build artificially intelligent systems favor what is true, right and ethical.
A press release from the Pontifical Academy quoted Robbins as saying: “AI is fundamentally changing our world – presenting vast opportunities, but also new challenges. For nearly 40 years, Cisco has built the networks that connect people and organizations around the world, and today we are building the critical infrastructure and security solutions that will power the AI revolution.
