A new Vatican document sounds the alarm against allowing artificial intelligence to be controlled by only a few powerful corporations and pleads for a “moral evaluation” of how and when AI is used. Source: NCR Online.
“The concentration of the power over mainstream AI applications in the hands of a few powerful companies raises significant ethical concerns,” it cautions. “This lack of well-defined accountability creates the risk that AI could be manipulated for personal or corporate gain or to direct public opinion for the benefit of a specific industry.”
The document, “Antiqua et Nova: Note on the Relationship Between Artificial Intelligence and Human Intelligence”, was released yesterday as a joint project between the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Dicastery for Culture and Education.
While the 25-page text acknowledges the transformative power of AI and enumerates a number of areas in which new technologies can be harnessed for social improvement, it cautions against any developments that could lead to dehumanisation.
Although AI is now widely used by hundreds of thousands of businesses and governments worldwide, the levers of its control remain in the hands of only a few major tech giants.
“AI cannot currently replicate moral discernment or the ability to establish authentic relationships,” the document states, adding that “AI should not be seen as an artificial form of human intelligence but as a product of it.”
Included in the text is an extensive reflection on how AI could both aid and hinder economic development and the labour market, health care, education, privacy and security and the environment.
The guiding principle throughout the text is that “AI should be used only as a tool to complement human intelligence rather than replace its richness”.
FULL STORY
Vatican warns against AI being controlled by powerful companies (By Christopher White, NCR Online)
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