IA: pope calls for global treaty for regulation – 12/14/2023 – Tech

Pope Francis urged the international community, this Thursday (14), to adopt a binding treaty to regulate the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and insisted on the importance of ethics in the face of the “serious risks” linked to new technologies.

In a message released by the Vatican on the occasion of the 57th World Day of Peace, which will take place on January 1st at the initiative of the Catholic Church, the pontiff calls for the adoption of “a binding international treaty that regulates the development and use of AI in its various forms”.

In this sense, Jorge Bergolgio, who will turn 87 on Sunday, invites us to reflect on the “sense of the limit” and states that human beings “run the risk […]in the search for absolute freedom, from falling into the spiral of a technological dictatorship”.

AI, which “will be increasingly important”, can be used for “disinformation campaigns”, “interference in electoral processes” and “influence the decisions of individuals”, writes the pope in this six-page message published by the Vatican in several languages.

The supreme pontiff celebrates the “extraordinary achievements of science and technology”, while assessing that they “are placing in the hands of man a vast array of possibilities, some of which represent a risk to human survival and a danger to the common home”.

“The remarkable progress of new information technologies […] They therefore present exciting opportunities and serious risks, with serious implications for the search for justice and harmony among peoples”, he insists.