“An exciting and fearsome tool”. Pope Francis on artificial intelligence

Abstract

The dynamic development of artificial intelligence is increasingly influencing many areas of human life. AI forecasts suggest that the importance of this technology will grow. It brings with it many opportunities and threats, and poses a challenge to the entire modern world. It is an innovative and essential technology that differs from anything that has been developed so far, which presents some difficulty in describing and evaluating it. Pope Francis’ response to this new phenomenon is the increasing appearance of the issue of artificial intelligence in his teaching. This article attempts to present and analyse the most important papal statements on AI with particular reference to the Message for the 57th World Day of Peace entitled Artificial Intelligence and Peace. The article focuses attention on the interpretive assumptions proposed by Francis: the appeal to Revelation, teaching and Tradition of the Church, and the papal description of the complexity of this phenomenon: among others, the difficulties of definition, the simplified description of action, the limitations of computational mechanics, the conditionality of AI’s response to the databases available to it, the wide range of impacts on human life, the need for a transdisciplinary approach, opportunities and threats.