Francis becomes first Pope to attend G7 summit; warns about dangers of AI

BARI, Italy (AP) — Pope Francis on Friday challenged the leaders of the world’s richest democracies to put human dignity first when developing and using artificial intelligence, warning that such powerful technology threatens to turn human relationships into mere algorithms.

Francis staked his moral authority on the Group of Seven, invited by host Italy to deliver a speech at a special session of its annual summit on the dangers and promises of AI. By attending the event, he became the first pope to attend a G7 summit, and offered a moral vision of an issue that is increasingly present on the agenda of international summits, government policy and business councils.

Francis said politicians should play a leading role in ensuring that AI remains human-centred, so that decisions about when to use weapons or less lethal tools are made by humans, not machines.

“If we strip people of their ability to make decisions about themselves and their lives and condemn them to depend on the choices of machines, we condemn humanity to a depressing future,” he said. “We must guarantee and protect the space for substantial human control over the decisions made by artificial intelligence programs: human dignity itself depends on it.”

Francisco joins a number of countries and global bodies pushing to strengthen barriers to AI, following the rise of generative artificial intelligence powered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot.

The Argentine Pope took advantage of his annual message for peace this year to call for an international treaty that guarantees the development and ethical use of AI. He argued that technology lacking human values ​​of compassion, kindness, morality and forgiveness is too dangerous to be developed unchecked.

He didn’t explicitly repeat that call in his speech on Friday, but he made clear that it’s up to politicians to lead on the issue. And he called on them to eventually ban the use of lethal autonomous weapons, colloquially known as “killer robots.”

“No machine should ever choose to take a human life,” he said.

Addressing the leaders of the table, he concluded: “It is up to everyone to make good use (of AI), but it is up to politics to create the conditions so that this good use is possible and fruitful.”