Pope Francis Addresses G7 Summit, Calls For Responsible AI Development

In a historic first, Pope Francis—the head of the Catholic Church and the sovereign of Vatican City—addressed the Group of Seven nations at the bloc's meeting in Italy, where he spoke about artificial intelligence.

Shortly after being introduced by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, the Pope launched into his speech, calling AI a "fascinating" and "terrifying" tool, before moving on to quote the Bible on the potential of humanity and how the development of science and technology are a product of that potential.

"On the one hand, AI excites us because of the possibilities it affords, and on the other, it generates fear because of the consequences," said Pope Francis, adding that the advent of the technology is a "true revolution".

The Argentinian pontiff went on to say that AI had the potential to further widen the gap between dominant and oppressed social classes, which could lead to a culture of "discarding" others.

Francis called for humans to always hold the reigns of decision-making when it comes to AI because algorithms make "technical" choices based on statistical inferences."We need to protect a signficiant area of control over the process of decision of AI programs."

Shifting gears, he called for a ban of autonomous weaponry in war, starting with what he called " a real and concrete decision to introduce greater and more significant human control" over the technology. Francis added that no machine should ever be allowed to decide whether to take a life or not.

Emphasising the need for human dignity to be maintained, the Pope said, "No innovation is neutral."

The pontiff said that while developing AI, the creators should always build them keeping in mind "ethical inspiration". This, he explained, was why he was a supporter of the Rome Call for AI 2020.

The Rome Call For AI is a non-legally binding agreement authored by the RenAIssance Foundation, a division of the Roman Catholic Church’s Pontifical Academy for Life. The agreement calls for a safe and future-proof approach to AI. The document has so far been signed by several tech giants like Microsoft, Cisco and IBM.

Towards the end of his speech, Francis called upon the G7 nation members and the invited developing nations to use politics to create the conditions to put AI to "good use" and make sure it is "fruitful".