Pope Francis is no stranger to artificial intelligence – last year a counterfeit photo of him in a white puffer jacket went viral – but his concerns about artificial intelligence go far beyond the unflattering portrayal and now take center stage at the top of the Group of Seven. Francis will address G7 leaders on Friday at their annual meeting in southern Italy – a first for a pope. It intends to utilize this opportunity to join the chorus of countries and global bodies calling for stronger guardrails for artificial intelligence in the wake of the boom in generative AI pioneered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot. The Argentine pope, in his annual peace message this year, called for an international treaty ensuring the development and utilize of artificial intelligence at the ethnic level.
He argues that technology without human values such as compassion, mercy, morality and forgiveness is too hazardous to develop unchecked.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni invited and announced Francis’ participation, knowing the potential impact of his star power and moral authority to connect a widely shared concern for artificial intelligence with his priorities for peace and social justice.
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“The pope is, well, a very special kind of celebrity,” said John Kirton, a political scientist at the University of Toronto who leads the think tank G7 Research Group.
Kirton recalled that the last summit to have such a star was a meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland, in 2005, at which members decided to write off $40 billion in debts of 18 of the world’s poorest countries to the World Bank and the International Monetary Agency Fund.
The summit was preceded by the Live8 concert in London, which featured Sting, The Who and the reformed Pink Floyd, and brought together over a million people in solidarity against hunger and poverty in Africa.
“Gleneagles actually hit a home run and for some people this is one of their most successful highs,” Kirton said.
There is less widespread pressure on G7 leaders in the Italian city of Puglia, but Francis is expected to exercise his own moral authority to renew his demands for artificial intelligence safeguards and highlight the threats it poses to peace and society.
Generative AI technology has dazzled the world with its ability to trigger human-like responses, but it has also raised concerns about AI’s safety and led to a mixed bag of global efforts to stop it.
Some fear catastrophic but distant threats to humanity due to its potential to create modern biological weapons and augment disinformation. Others worry about the impact on everyday life through algorithmic bias resulting in discrimination or artificial intelligence systems eliminating jobs.
In his peace message, Francis echoed these concerns and raised others. He said artificial intelligence must, above all, focus on guaranteeing fundamental human rights, promoting peace and protecting against disinformation, discrimination and distortions.
On regulation, Francis will be, in a sense, preaching to the converted, as G7 members have led the debate on AI oversight.
Japan, which held the rotating presidency of the G7 last year, launched an AI process in Hiroshima to develop international guidelines and a code of conduct for AI developers.
In addition to these efforts, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida last month unveiled a framework for the global regulation of generative artificial intelligence, or systems that can quickly create modern text, images, video and audio in response to prompts and commands.
The European Union was an early mover, introducing a sweeping AI law that is expected to come into force within the next two years and could act as a global model. The law applies to any artificial intelligence products or services offered in the bloc’s 27 countries, with restrictions based on the level of risk they pose.
In the United States, President Joe Biden issued an executive order on AI safeguards and called for legislation to strengthen them, while some states such as California and Colorado have tried to pass their own AI laws, with mixed results.
Antitrust enforcers on both sides of the Atlantic are scrutinizing enormous artificial intelligence companies including Microsoft, Amazon and OpenAI for whether their dominant position stifles competition.
Last autumn, the UK launched a global dialogue on how to stop the most extreme threats from artificial intelligence. At the next meeting in Seoul, the companies committed to developing the technology safely. France is scheduled to host the next match in the series early next year. The United Nations also weighed in with its first resolution on artificial intelligence.
On the sidelines of his speech on artificial intelligence, Francis has a full day of bilateral meetings. He will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, as well as invited leaders from Algeria, Brazil, India, Kenya and Turkey. He will also meet with G7 members including Biden, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and French President Emmanuel Macron. (AP) RUP RUP
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