BARI, Italy — Pope Francis is over 80 and says he can't use a computer, but one afternoon in February 2019, a diplomat from a major American tech company walked into the papal palace seeking guidance on the ethics of a developing technology: artificial intelligence.
The pope and Microsoft president Brad Smith discussed the rapid development of technology, Smith told The Washington Post in an interview. The pope seemed to understand the risks of technology. As Smith left, the pope offered a warning. “Don't forget your humanity,” he urged, holding Smith's wrist.
Five years on, AI has become inescapable—as the pope himself realized last year when an image of him wearing a Balenciaga down jacket went viral, ushering in a new era of deepfakes—and as the technology expands, the Vatican has positioned itself as the conscience of companies like Microsoft and emerged as a surprisingly influential voice in the debate over the global governance of AI.
Pope Francis arrived in southern Italy on Friday to become the first pope to address the G7 summit and take part in a session of the summit dedicated to AI.
“The Pope's attendance will be a decisive contribution in defining the regulatory, ethical and cultural framework for artificial intelligence,” Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said in a statement announcing the invitation.
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Just as the pope has sought to heighten the urgency of climate change, Francis is now focusing on AI, which he says “poses a risk to our survival” and “could endanger our common home.”
His concerns are not focused on the malicious machines predicted in science fiction movies, or how the possibility of sentient AI would challenge fundamental definitions of life, but rather on the apocalyptic possibilities of AI weaponization. He fears that human empathy will be lost as algorithms begin to determine the outcomes of everything from asylum applications to bank loans. He welcomes the “exciting opportunities” of the technology but worries about its power to deepen inequalities within and between nations. He argues that these risks must be managed through a global treaty regulating AI.
“The uniquely human capacity for moral judgment and ethical decision-making is more than a collection of complex algorithms; it cannot be reduced to the programming of a machine. A machine, no matter how 'intelligent' it may be, is still a machine,” the pope said in December. “For this reason, it is essential to ensure adequate, meaningful and consistent human oversight of weapons systems.”
On Friday, world leaders, with the backing of the Vatican, are set to unveil a badge of honor of sorts. It's a new label given to companies that agree to develop AI tools safely and ethically, according to a person familiar with the G7 discussions who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of the plan's announcement. The label would amount to a “voluntary” initiative backed by an oversight and reporting system.
The AI issue has given the church, weakened by its response to clergy sex abuse, an opportunity to reassert its moral authority. Microsoft and at least some other tech companies seem eager for the Catholic Church's approval as the industry grapples with public relations challenges over technologies that could automate jobs, spread misinformation and create new cybersecurity risks.
Rome's Call for AI Ethics, a document signed by the Vatican, Microsoft and IBM in 2020, has emerged as the gold standard for AI best practices. Representatives of Judaism and Islam signed it last year. Several Eastern religions are due to join next month, joining a list that now includes hundreds of companies, universities and UN agencies working to develop global guidelines.
The Vatican has gained a seat at the table for major tech companies: this ancient institution with a mixed track record when it comes to science (see: Galileo trial) now sends representatives to major tech events.
The Vatican's leading AI expert, Father Paolo Benanti, a Franciscan priest and trained engineer known for coining the term “argoethics,” was elected to the UN's Artificial Intelligence Advisory Board last year and is playing a key role in shaping Italy's national AI policy, a member of the G7. At the request of the Vatican, the IMB hosted the World Universities Summit at the University of Notre Dame, which pushed AI ethics to the forefront of the curriculum.
The Vatican's views have influenced concrete business decisions. “We've developed proprietary technology that allows anyone to reproduce someone's voice by listening to it for a few seconds,” Smith told The Washington Post, adding that Roma Cole has “definitely helped Microsoft to be open-minded about AI development, including internally. I think Roma Cole has provided a well-rounded human and intellectual framework.”
Microsoft's chief AI officer, Natasha Crampton, said the pledge's emphasis on inclusivity also influenced the company's decision to launch a fellowship that brings together researchers and civil society leaders, mostly from the global South, to evaluate the technology's impact. The fellows have helped the company develop multilingual evaluations of AI models, allowing it to understand local contexts and cultural norms as it develops new products.
Not all companies are on board with the Rome Principles, and some are working to distribute AI-manipulated audio, but researchers have warned that it could be misused to mislead voters ahead of elections.
Not everyone is allowed to join the Club of Rome. “Huawei asked,” said Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, “and we said no, because we don't really know what Huawei is trying to do.” [people in charge there] think.”
Meanwhile, the Vatican remains concerned about the misuse of open-source AI. The technology could bring great benefits to healthcare and education, Benanti said. “But it could also have a lot of negative effects on society. You can't have AI everywhere without a political decision, because you could wake up tomorrow and find that inequality or biological weapons have proliferated,” he said.
Vatican officials have already sounded the alarm about what they see as potentially unethical uses, such as the facial recognition systems used in the crackdown on protests in Hong Kong in 2019-2020, and refugee processing algorithms in countries such as Germany, where AI-powered language tests are used to make sure asylum seekers are not lying about their place of origin.
The Vatican's relationship with AI innovators dates back to a speech Benanti gave on AI ethics in 2018. In the audience was a senior representative of Microsoft in Italy, and the two began meeting regularly. They invited Paglia, who was interested in expanding his society's mission beyond core issues like the ethics of stem-cell research, to join them.
Before Smith met the pope, Paglia took him to see Michelangelo's “The Last Judgment” in the Sistine Chapel and showed him Galileo's depiction of the Earth revolving around the sun, a theory that got the pope placed under lifelong house arrest after his church trial.
But the Vatican's relationship with science has not always been Luddite: In the Middle Ages, Catholic scholars founded some of Europe's greatest universities, and Darwin's theory of evolution, although attacked by some clergy, was never officially criticized by the Vatican.
The Church officially declares that “faith and reason” are not contradictory.
“The Bible doesn't tell us how heaven will work, but it does tell us how to get there,” Archbishop Paglia said, quoting Galileo, during an official visit to Microsoft's headquarters near Seattle and IBM's offices in New York.
Microsoft's aggressive AI investments have made it the world's most valuable company, with a market capitalization of more than $3 trillion. But the company's continued success depends on tackling negative perceptions of AI. Concerns that the technology will eliminate jobs, increase inequality, increase surveillance and lead to new kinds of warfare have governments around the world considering tougher regulations that could blunt the company's ambitions.
The European Union is preparing landmark antitrust legislation that could restrict more advanced generative AI models. The Federal Trade Commission is investigating Microsoft's deal with AI startup Inflexion, looking into whether the tech giant deliberately set up the investment to avoid merger review. And U.S. enforcement agencies have struck deals that will bring greater scrutiny to how the company wields its power to dominate artificial intelligence, including its multibillion-dollar investment in ChatGPT maker OpenAI. The relationship exposes Microsoft to new reputational risks, as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is a frequent source of controversy.
Under Smith's direction, Microsoft has built one of the most sophisticated global lobbying organizations to navigate regulatory challenges and convince people that it is the tech giant the world can trust to develop AI. Smith regularly meets with world leaders and attended a factory opening with President Biden last month. Smith said that to be an effective business, Microsoft must lobby governments and find ways for its technology to transcend them.
“The world's oldest international organization” can be a unique teacher and partner in that effort, he said. Catholicism and other religions are not bound by borders, much like the applications Microsoft markets around the world.
“In some ways we seem like an odd pairing,” Smith says, “but on the other hand, we're the perfect match.”
Zakrzewski reported from Washington.
