“Don’t call it intelligence.” Thus the very long and articulated document could be summarized “Antiqua et Nova” that the dicasteries of the doctrine of faith and culture have developed on the “relationship between artificial intelligence and human intelligence”. An opportunity, of course, that offered by the new tools, but with the risk of becoming slaves to the machines. “The Church encourages progress in science, technology, arts and in any other human enterprise, seeing them as part of the” collaboration of man and woman with God in bringing perfect creation to perfection “” “reads the 117 paragraphs in which the document is divided and who are aimed above all at parents, teachers, priests and all those who are called to educate to faith, but also to those who share the need for a technological and scientific development that is always marked by the “service of the person and the common good”.
The Vatican note explores the application of the IA in the various fields, from economy to health, from war contexts to that of international relations and, while recognizing its great potential also on warns from risk that it becomes uncontrollable and that rushes into “spirals of self -destruction”.
The note stresses that “the very use of the Word intelligence, in reference to the AI, is misleading and risks neglecting what is more precious in the human person. Starting from this perspective, the IA should not be seen as an artificial form of intelligence, but as one of its products “.
“One of the purposes of this technology is to imitate the human intelligence that designed it,” reads the number 3 of the document. «For example, unlike many other human creations, the IA can be trained on the products of human ingenuity and therefore generate new” artifacts “with a level of speed and skills that often equal or overcome human skills, such as generating texts or images that are indistinguishable from human compositions, therefore arousing concern for his possible influence on the growing crisis of truth in the public debate. In addition, being such a technology designed to learn and adopt some choices independently, adapting to new situations and providing solutions not provided for by its programmers, substantial problems of ethical and safety responsibility derive, with wider repercussions on the whole company ».
In particular, the Vatican is worrying, in field of work, that the IA can “dequalify the workers, submit them to automated surveillance and relegate them to rigid and repetitive functions, to the point of suffocating any innovative capacity. We must not try to replace human work more and more with technological progress: in this way humanity would damage itself ».
On the Healthcare There is a risk that this technology may “worsen that solitude that frequently accompanies the disease” and that it can “penalize the most fragile” or to create “forms of prejudice and discrimination” which, in fact, will create a “Medicine for the rich “.
On fake news The risk is that the “genres of manipulated content and false information” thus feeding “A hallucination »that affects the common feeling and choices. This is thanks to images, video and audio deepfake created to “deceive or damage”.
And again, on privacy, The note places the risk that, thanks to the prophylations and algorithms, conditions “Perhaps even the conscience” of people. “Digital surveillance”, in fact, “can be used to exercise control over the life of believers and on the expression of their faith”.
Furthermore, a sort of idolatrywith the “presumption of replacing God with a work of their own hands is idolatri”. The IA can be “more seductive than traditional idols” even if, in reality, it is only “a pale reflection” of humanity. And man becomes “in this way, a slave of his own work” instead of using it “as a complementary tool to human intelligence” that does not replace its “wealth”.
Particular attention then to the use of the IA in wars. The paragraphs 99, 100 and 101 amount: “While the analytical skills of the AI could be used to help nations to search for peace and to guarantee security, the” war use of artificial intelligence “can be very problematic. Pope Francis observed that “La possibility of conducting military operations through remote control systems has led to a lower perception of the devastation caused by them and the responsibility of their usecontributing to an even colder and detached approach to the immense tragedy of war “. Furthermore, the ease with which weapons made autonomous, make war more practicable goes against the same principle of war as the last resource in case of legitimate defense, increasing the war resources well beyond the scope of human control and accelerating a destabilizing race to armaments with devastating consequences for human rights ». “In particular, they worry the systems of autonomous and lethal weapons, capable of identifying and affecting objectives without direct human intervention”For this reason “Pope Francis urgently invited to rethink the development of these weapons to ban their use,” starting already with an effective and concrete commitment to introduce an increasing and significant human control. No machine should ever choose whether to remove life from a human being “».
And again, in paragraph 101 it is said: “Since the waste between machines capable of killing precisely and other capable of mass destruction, some researchers engaged in the field have expressed the concern that this technology represents a “Existential risk”, being able to act in ways that could threaten the survival of humanity or entire regions. This eventuality must be taken in serious consideration, in line with the constant concern towards those technologies that give the war “an uncontrollable destructive power, which affects many innocent civilians”, without even saving children “.
