Pope Francis recently achieved two significant milestones. First, he became the first supreme pontiff to attend the Venice Biennale, a contemporary art festival, on April 28, marking the 129th year since its foundation in 1895. Second, he was the first pope to participate in the Group of Seven Pope Francis recently achieved two significant milestones.
Do Pope Francis’ recent firsts — the Venice Biennale and the Puglia G7 address on artificial intelligence — benefit the Church and its mission? Vatican II acknowledged that the rapid development of science and technology has introduced new problems, necessitating novel approaches to pastoral work. Additionally, Gaudium et Spes emphasises the importance of ethical principles and moral norms in scientific research, while also affirming that sciences and human activities have the right to their own methodological autonomy.
Students are often much better prepared for, and more familiar with, using artificial intelligence than their teachers. Yet they forget that, strictly speaking, so-called generative artificial intelligence is not really ‘generative.’ Instead, it searches big data for information and puts it together in the style required of it. It does not develop new analyses or concepts, but repeats those that it finds, giving them an appealing form.
The same principle applies to uncontrolled “lethal autonomous weapons.” Human control and decision-making are imperative, as no machine should have the authority to choose to take a human life.Politics serves the society, and a better kind of politics, a far-sighted politics that is capable of a new, integral and interdisciplinary approach to handling the different aspects of the crisis, will serve society better, an argument Pope Francis made in his 2020 encyclical letter Fratelli Tutti .