VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Kean Luan, chief information security officer at Google parent Alphabet, raised the question of “why do we need AGI” when it comes to artificial general intelligence, an AI system that can match or exceed human intelligence in a wide range of situations.
Determining the purpose of AGI and its contribution to humanity is a “broader dialogue that hasn't really taken place before at a global level,” Luan said at a conference on Human Flourishing and Technology held at the headquarters of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in Rome on May 23.
Academics, technology experts and business leaders gathered at the Vatican for a two-day conference to discuss integrating emerging technologies to advance the benefit of humanity.
Father Philip Lally, a professor of philosophy at Boston University and president of Humanity 2.0, a nonprofit that blends technology with human flourishing, is seen at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome in this file photo taken in March 2023. (CNS photo/Robert Duncan)
OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, defines AGI as “highly autonomous systems that outperform humans on the most economically valuable tasks,” and its development is a major goal not only for the company but also for Meta, Facebook's parent company, Google, and others.
“Some people seem to think that this is something we should pursue because it's necessary in the short term,” Luan said, “but whether we should (create) more-than-human intelligence when society isn't ready for it is another question.”
Developing AGI would require huge financial investments, and “the investments and the funding are not evenly balanced in terms of ethics and human flourishing,” she noted, adding, “We want to balance the equation before we rush into AGI.”
As artificial intelligence technologies continue to develop, “the framework for evaluating whether AI is being used properly will be the framework of human flourishing,” said Father Philip Lally, a philosophy professor at Boston University and president of Humanity 2.0, a nonprofit that integrates technology and human flourishing.
Father Laray cited a Goldman Sachs report that estimates that artificial intelligence could replace 300 million full-time jobs in the long term. Just because humans can rapidly create these tools doesn't mean they should, he said, if they can't find the right solutions for humans to adapt to them. But “we will tend to give AI more and more autonomy because it's good at the tasks we want it to complete,” he said.
“Currently, artificial intelligence is heavily driven by corporate interests focused on profits and shareholder value, and it is not well aligned with our need to thrive both as individuals and as a society,” Dennis Snower, economist and president of the Global Solutions Initiative, told Catholic News Agency.
He said technology developers, businesses and government leaders needed to “realign the profit motive with social and environmental needs” and that “faith is a key vehicle for achieving this broader perspective.”
“Right now we're creating all these global problems, and as we address these problems we need to first and foremost recognize ourselves as part of a common humanity, and the great religions are important stepping stones in that direction,” Snower said.
Ketan Patel, CEO of Greater Pacific Capital and chair of the Force for Good initiative, told CNS that investments are now shifting toward human flourishing, and religious leaders need to be involved in guiding that movement because they have a “perspective that goes beyond commercial motivations.”
James Pawelski, education director at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Positive Psychology, told the conference that promoting human flourishing requires “connecting culture with mental and physical health” and recognizing the role of culture in fostering social connections and cultivating spirituality.
“Arts, culture and relationships can take us beyond ourselves,” but “artificial intelligence will never be able to grasp anything beyond us,” said Elizabeth Kincaid, director of the Center for Ethics and Economic Justice at Loyola University in New Orleans.
The Catholic tradition is full of hope, she said, but also tinged with “bitterness,” a sense that human life is not in line with how it should be, and that is why “humans need to be constantly conscious of both the beauty and the pain we all experience if we are to thrive in relationship with AI that promises us utopia.”
Experts said it remains to be seen whether AI systems can absorb the wealth of human experience, but the bigger question is whether AI technology will always keep humanity's best interests in mind when its intelligence surpasses that of the humans who created it.
“The potential for good, the potential to address humanity's greatest challenges, is unparalleled, unprecedented and profound,” said Janet Adams, chief operating officer at SingularityNET, a decentralized marketplace for AI algorithms. “The question is, who will develop that AGI, and with what values?”
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