If they make an effort to review it readers will find the attached report both constructive and provocative. Translated from its Italian by James Crowley, the Dean of NCCF’s trustees, it chronicles the February 3rd interview between Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia and Davide Maniscalco, respectively the President of the Pontifical Academy for Life and a reporter for the Italian new organization, OFCS.
The interview anticipates a workshop to be conducted later that month by the Academy in collaboration with Microsoft and IBM, the purpose of which is to address to ethical challenges Artificial Intelligence (AI) poses.
The challenges are daunting and, but for the guiding hand of Providence, would be terrifying. As Archbishop Paglia states: “ Technology is advancing so fast compared to our awareness of its ethical and anthropological implications that we risk falling behind and not being able to pump the brakes on a car that is already on a dizzying downhill ride”. Likening ‘big data’ to ‘big oil’ Paglia warns against the danger of a new kind of slavery where depending on one’s technical competence he is either a master or a servant. Activities are controlled by algorithms rather than by people. In an ‘algorithm-ocracy’ man becomes the pawn of technology and not vice-versa. Where no universally recognized ethical standards are in place, we would enter the realm of ‘post-humanization’ or ‘self-dehumanization’. As a sample of this transhumanistic mindset Paglia cites a Japanese scientist who lately has suggested that with the possibilities of cloning the current human condition will be the last one that will be biological and organic!
We owe Mr. Crowley a debt of gratitude for this timely and critically important translation. We should also acknowledge and applaud the initiative of the Microsoft and IBM leaders referenced in the interview. The Archbishop’s remarks are an alarum of sorts. He exhorts us: “As far as the Catholic Church is concerned, we can no longer be content with giving advice from the outside. We have to be on the inside to be able to understand the possibilities as well as the dangers of the new technologies”.
The February conference on Artificial Intelligence has taken place and as of yet no report on it has come across this desk. However, a follow up conference is planned which will include more participants and expand on the matters covered earlier this year. Though it will be not be billed as a religious gathering let us hope Vocatus atque non vocatus Deus aderit – Bidden or not bidden, God is present.
Otherwise how will the Kingdom advance?
Read OFCS Report dated February 3, 2020 (interview) here