The Pope’s “AI guy” – Fr Paolo Benanti – has declared Australia is in the “front line” of the battle to control AI development and stop the big tech firms acting as a self-interested cartel. Source: The Australian.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese cited Pope Leo XIV’s leadership on AI as he launched his own campaign, with other middle powers, to exert more control over the big tech firms, the monopolies of China and the US, and to demand greater transparency following security breaches from rogue AI agents.
Fr Benanti, a theologian and philosopher at the Papal Gregorian University, was appointed as an AI adviser by Pope Francis and advises the Vatican as Pope Leo takes a global lead on controlling AI, believes there is a need for guardrails and guidelines which do not undermine the advantages AI offers to humans.
“Australia has done well with its laws on trying to protect younger people and I think we need to look at defining basic laws as AI develops,” Fr Benanti said.
“No-one should be above the law and in the case of AI the big tech companies should not be above the law. The development of AI must be for everyone.”
After landing in Perth yesterday, Fr Benanti likened AI control to road rules: “It was clear there is a basic laws for cars in Australia that you drive on the left, in Italy it is a basic law that people drive on the right. This is not about defining cars, stopping cars or stopping the use of cars; it is just about ensuring a lot of people don’t get killed”.
In relation to the use of AI and social media Fr Benanti, who attended King Charles’s AI summit in Edinburgh last month, said: “We also have to develop a ‘brain helmet’ for young people.”
“Australia is on the front line in this regard and Australia is telling us that the big companies must be under the law,” he said.
Fr Benanti will be in Australia for more than a week meeting federal ministers, academics and theologians.
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Pope Leo’s ‘AI guy’ blesses Anthony Albanese’s efforts to restrain tech bosses (By Dennis Shanahan, The Australian)
