Five years on, AI has become inescapable—as the pope himself realized last year when an image of him wearing a Balenciaga down jacket went viral, ushering in a new era of deepfakes—and as AI technology becomes more prevalent, the Vatican has positioned itself as the conscience of companies like Microsoft and emerged as a surprisingly influential voice in the debate over the global governance of AI.
Pope Francis on Friday became the first pope to address the Group of Seven forum of world leaders in southern Italy, where he delivered a moral treatise on the “cognitive industrial revolution” represented by AI, seeking to make the issue as important as climate change.
In a sweeping address, the Pope described the technology's implications as “fascinating and frightening at the same time,” saying it could change “our perception of our identity as human beings.” He condemned AI for its potential to strengthen the dominance of Western culture and undermine human dignity.
He said AI serves as a tool to democratize knowledge, enable scientific breakthroughs and alleviate the human condition by letting humans “let machines do the hard work.” But he warned that AI also has destructive powers and called for an “urgent” ban on lethal autonomous weapons. As a specter of the future, he referred to the 1907 dystopian novel “Master of the World,” in which technology replaces religion and belief in God.
“No machine should choose to take a human life,” the Pope said.
He has previously argued that AI risks must be managed through international treaties, and on Friday supported the need for uniform international “principles” to guide the development of AI.
The “Rome Call for AI Ethics,” a document signed by the Vatican, Microsoft, and IBM in 2020, has emerged as the gold standard for AI best practices. The document informed G7 discussions on developing a code of conduct. And on Friday, G7 leaders announced they would create a kind of badge of honor, with the Vatican's backing: a new label for companies that agree to develop AI tools safely and ethically and follow guidelines for voluntary reporting and monitoring of risks. Echoing the Vatican's concerns, the leaders went on to call for “responsible military use of AI.”
The AI issue has presented an opportunity for the church, weakened by its response to the clergy sex-abuse scandal, to reassert its moral authority. Microsoft and at least some other tech companies seem eager for the church's approval as the industry grapples with public-relations challenges over technologies that could automate jobs, spread misinformation and create new cybersecurity risks.
The Vatican has gained a seat at the table for major tech companies: this ancient institution with a mixed track record when it comes to science (see: Galileo trial) now sends representatives to major tech events.
The Vatican's leading AI expert, Father Paolo Benanti, a Franciscan priest and trained engineer known for coining the term “argoethics,” secured a seat on the UN's Artificial Intelligence Advisory Committee last year and is playing a key role in shaping Italy's national AI policy, a G7 country. At the request of the Vatican, IBM hosted a World Summit of Universities at the University of Notre Dame, bringing AI ethics to the forefront of the curriculum.
The Vatican's views are influencing specific business decisions. “We've developed proprietary technology that would allow anyone to reproduce someone's voice by listening to a few seconds of their voice,” Microsoft's Smith told The Washington Post. “But we've chosen not to make it public.” He added that the Rome Principles “have certainly helped Microsoft, including internally, to be open-minded about AI development. I think they've provided a broad humanistic and intellectual framework.”
Microsoft's chief AI officer, Natasha Crampton, said the pledge's emphasis on inclusivity also influenced the company's decision to launch a fellowship that brings together researchers and civil society leaders, mostly from the global South, to evaluate the technology's impact. The fellows have helped the company develop multilingual evaluations of AI models, allowing it to understand local contexts and cultural norms when developing new products.
Not all companies are on board with the Rome Principles, and some are working to distribute AI-manipulated audio, but researchers have warned that it could be misused to mislead voters ahead of elections.
Not everyone is allowed to join the Club of Rome. The Chinese company Huawei,” Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, said, “we said no, because [people in charge there] think.”
Meanwhile, the Vatican remains concerned about the misuse of open-source AI. The technology could bring great benefits to healthcare and education, Benanti said. “But it could also have a lot of negative effects on society. You can't have AI everywhere without a political decision, because you could wake up tomorrow and find that inequality or biological weapons have proliferated,” he said.
Vatican officials have already sounded the alarm about what they see as potentially unethical uses, such as the facial recognition systems used in the crackdown on protests in Hong Kong in 2019-2020, and refugee processing algorithms in countries such as Germany, where AI-powered language tests are used to make sure asylum seekers are not lying about their place of origin.
The Vatican's relationship with AI innovators dates back to a speech Benanti gave on AI ethics in 2018. In the audience was a senior representative of Microsoft in Italy, and the two began meeting regularly. They invited Paglia, who was interested in expanding his society's mission beyond core issues like the ethics of stem-cell research, to join them.
Before Smith met the pope, Paglia took him to see Michelangelo's “The Last Judgment” in the Sistine Chapel and showed him Galileo's depiction of the Earth revolving around the sun, a theory that got the pope placed under lifelong house arrest after his church trial.
But the Vatican's relationship with science has not always been Luddite: In the Middle Ages, Catholic scholars founded some of Europe's greatest universities, and Darwin's theory of evolution, although attacked by some clergy, was never officially criticized by the Vatican.
The Church officially declares that “faith and reason” are not contradictory.
“The Bible doesn't tell us how heaven will work, but it does tell us how to get there,” Archbishop Paglia said, quoting Galileo, during an official visit to Microsoft's headquarters near Seattle and IBM's offices in New York.
Microsoft's aggressive AI investments have made it the world's most valuable company, with a market capitalization of more than $3 trillion. But the company's continued success depends on tackling negative perceptions of AI. Concerns that AI technology will eliminate jobs, increase inequality, increase surveillance and lead to new kinds of warfare have governments around the world considering tougher regulations that could blunt the company's ambitions.
The European Union is preparing landmark legislation that could restrict more advanced generative AI models. The Federal Trade Commission is investigating Microsoft's deal with AI startup Inflexion, looking into whether the tech giant deliberately set up the investment to avoid merger review. And U.S. enforcement agencies have struck deals that will bring greater scrutiny to how the company wields its power to dominate artificial intelligence, including its multibillion-dollar investment in ChatGPT maker OpenAI. The relationship exposes Microsoft to new reputational risks, as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is a frequent source of controversy.
Under Smith's direction, Microsoft has built the most sophisticated global lobbying organization to navigate regulatory challenges and convince people that the company is the tech giant the world can trust to develop AI. Smith regularly meets with world leaders and attended a factory opening with President Biden last month. Smith said that to be an effective business, Microsoft needs to find ways to work with governments and ensure its technology transcends them.
“The world's oldest international organization” can be a unique teacher and partner in that effort, he said, referring to the Vatican. Catholicism and other religions are not bound by borders. Microsoft sells globally.
“In some ways we seem like an odd pairing,” Smith says, “but on the other hand, we're the perfect match.”
Zakrzewski reported from Washington.
