(LifeSiteNews) — A Monday Vatican seminar proposed that the Holy See can play a pivotal role in promoting “global governance” that can develop artificial intelligence (AI) systems that are “ethical from their design stage.”
According to Vatican News, this was one of the themes of the March 2 seminar “Potential and Challenges of Artificial Intelligence” organized by the Secretariat for the Economy and the Office of Labor of the Apostolic See (ULSA) and held in Rome at the Salone San Pio X.
The implications of this proposal alone are enormous. It first assumes that a form of global government will help develop and design artificial intelligence, raising concerns about built-in “backdoors” that would give an international government automatic access to intimate information about the users of AI.
This would be concerning enough to privacy and ethics advocates if a merely national government was involved in AI design, but the proposal that an international government would be involved raises even graver concerns. This is in part because such a body presents the risk of “locking in” AI regulations that restrict information access and free speech, irrespective of an individual country’s technology laws.
Existing international bodies that the Vatican has cozied up to under Pope Francis and Leo XIV, such as the United Nations, also endorse grave evils such as abortion, meaning the involvement of a global government in AI design will likely be ethically tainted from the start, approaching AI from a secular instead of a Christian lens.
The possibility that the Vatican itself would promote such AI-involved “global governance” and potentially even direct its operations does not mitigate these concerns, given that its policy under Francis and Leo has been one of silence in the face of the moral offenses of bodies like the UN while supporting their material objectives.
An alliance of the Vatican with secular international bodies, absent any efforts to correct or remedy their errors, is problematic in itself.
Pope Leo XIV is expected to address the issue of AI in his upcoming first encyclical, details of which have recently been leaked. The document reportedly advises that particular attention should be devoted to the use of nanotechnologies (which can utilize AI), genetic engineering, and other tools that may enhance or modify human biological functions. It is notable that the encyclical does not reject these technologies outright. The proposed criterion would be that such means should be directed toward improving health and alleviating the suffering of the sick rather than toward creating hybrid or augmented human beings.
Monday’s Vatican AI seminar was “appreciated and encouraged” by Pope Leo, who expressed hope for “deeper awareness in this highly relevant and complex field,” according to Professor Pasquale Passalacqua, Director of ULSA, who opened the seminar.
During the seminar, Bishop Paul Tighe, Secretary of the Dicastery for Culture and Education, stressed that AI and new technologies are tied up with “geopolitical rivalries, commercial pressures, and personal ambitions.” For guidance, he pointed to the 2024 Vatican document Antiqua et Nova, issued by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in collaboration with the Dicastery for Culture and Education. The document refers to “the dignity and vocation of the human person” as a “guiding” moral principle to be used with regard to AI.
“For its part, the Church possesses ‘moral authority’ and the ability to bring together qualified interlocutors, thereby becoming a meaningful partner in guiding the development of AI,” Vatican News reported in a summary of one of the bishop’s points.
Moderator Alessandro Gisotti, Deputy Editorial Director of the Dicastery for Communication, emphasized that Monday’s seminar represented a “commitment” of the Church to involvement in AI.
For his part, Professor Corrado Giustozzi echoed a point of Antiqua et Nova that AI algorithms must avoid “prejudices,” whether intentional or not, “that distort results or render them inequitable,” according to Vatican News.
