CV NEWS FEED// In a message entitled “Hope and Act with Creation,” Pope Francis encourages Catholics to limit human power over nature, especially artificial intelligence (AI).
The document, which the Vatican press office released on June 27, is the Pope’s official message for the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, to be celebrated worldwide on Sept. 1. this year.
In the text, the Holy Father emphasizes man’s role in guarding over creation, saying that obedience to the Holy Spirit changes the way that man interacts with creation: “from ‘predators’, we become ‘tillers’ of the garden.” Enlightened by the Holy Spirit, man must work in cooperation with nature, as an attempt to dominate and manipulate it “represents a form of idolatry.”
Pope Francis warns of the results of unchecked power and how it “creates monsters,” citing AI as an example: “there is an urgent need to set ethical limits on the development of artificial intelligence, since its capacity for calculation and simulation could be used for domination over humanity and nature, instead of being harnessed for the service of peace and integral development.”
This is not the first time the Pope has urged caution in matters of AI. According to the Vatican News, last Saturday, the Pope addressed members of the international convention, “Generative Artificial Intelligence and Technocratic Paradigm,” which the Vatican’s Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice organizes.
After thanking the participants for their work, he urged them that AI “must remain a tool,” not become an autonomous agent.
The Holy Father told the participants that the fundamental question regarding AI must be whether it serves the well-being of humanity or poses a danger to humanity while benefiting and empowering “the few technical giants.”
In the audience, he even questioned using the word “intelligence” to describe AI. He said that people refer to something artificial as intelligence, when intelligence is fundamentally human, should prompt consideration of “whether the misuse of this word… is not already a surrender to technocratic power.”
