AI: A fascinating and formidable tool

On June 14, 2024, Pope Francis made an unprecedented address to the leaders of the G7 countries—a group comprising seven of the ten most powerful nations in the world (Germany, Canada, the United States, France, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom, but excluding China, Russia, and India). He attended their session in Borgo Egnazia, in the Puglia region of Italy, to present "a reflection on the effects of artificial intelligence (AI) on the future of humanity," describing AI as a "fascinating and formidable tool." He warned them about the dangers of AI and the need to regulate it so that humans do not become its victims. Below are excerpts from his speech :

Artificial intelligence is an extremely powerful tool, employed in many kinds of human activity : from medicine to the world of work ; from culture to the field of communications ; from education to politics. It is now safe to assume that its use will increasingly influence the way we live, our social relationships and even the way we conceive of our identity as human beings.

The question of artificial intelligence, however, is often perceived as ambiguous : on the one hand, it generates excitement for the possibilities it offers, while on the other it gives rise to fear for the consequences it foreshadows. In this regard, we could say that all of us, albeit to varying degrees, experience two emotions : we are enthusiastic when we imagine the advances that can result from artificial intelligence but, at the same time, we are fearful when we acknowledge the dangers inherent in its use. (…)

The use of our tools, however, is not always directed solely to the good... In fact, when our ancestors sharpened flint stones to make knives, they used them both to cut hides for clothing and to kill each other. The same could be said of other more advanced technologies, such as the energy produced by the fusion of atoms, as occurs within the Sun, which could be used to produce clean, renewable energy or to reduce our planet to a pile of ashes (atomic bombs).

Artificial intelligence, however, is a still more complex tool. I would almost say that we are dealing with a tool sui generis (constituting a class alone). While the use of a simple tool (like a knife) is under the control of the person who uses it and its use for the good depends only on that person, artificial intelligence, on the other hand, can autonomously adapt to the task assigned to it and, if designed this way, can make choices independent of the person in order to achieve the intended goal.

The machine makes a technical choice among several possibilities based either on well-defined criteria or on statistical inferences. Human beings, however, not only choose, but in their hearts are capable of deciding...

Faced with the marvels of machines, which seem to know how to choose independently, we should be very clear that decision-making, even when we are confronted with its sometimes dramatic and urgent aspects, must always be left to the human person. We would condemn humanity to a future without hope if we took away people's ability to make decisions about themselves and their lives, by dooming them to depend on the choices of machines. We need to ensure and safeguard a space for proper human control over the choices made by artificial intelligence programs : human dignity itself depends on it.

Precisely in this regard, allow me to insist : in light of the tragedy that is armed conflict, it is urgent to reconsider the development and use of devices like the so-called "lethal autonomous weapons" and ultimately ban their use. This starts from an effective and concrete commitment to introduce ever greater and proper human control. No machine should ever choose to take the life of a human being.

It must be added, moreover, that the good use, at least of advanced forms of artificial intelligence, will not be fully under the control of either the users or the programmers who defined their original purposes at the time they were designed.

This is all the more true because it is highly likely that, in the not-too-distant future, artificial intelligence programs will be able to communicate directly with each other to improve their performance. And if, in the past, men and women who fashioned simple tools saw their lives shaped by them – the knife enabled them to survive the cold but also to develop the art of warfare – now that human beings have fashioned complex tools they will see their lives shaped by them all the more.

                                                   Pope Francis