II. what Is Artificial Intelligence?
1. With wisdom both ancient and brand-new (cf. Mt. 13:52), we are called to assess the present challenges and opportunities presented by scientific and technological developments, particularly by the current development of Artificial Intelligence (AI). The Christian tradition regards the gift of intelligence as an important aspect of how people are created "in the image of God" (Gen. 1:27). Beginning with an integral vision of the human individual and the scriptural calling to "till" and "keep" the earth (Gen. 2:15), the Church emphasizes that this gift of intelligence should be revealed through the accountable use of factor and technical capabilities in the stewardship of the produced world.
2. The Church motivates the advancement of science, innovation, the arts, and other types of human undertaking, viewing them as part of the "collaboration of guy and female with God in improving the visible creation." [1] As Sirach affirms, God "gave ability to human beings, that he might be glorified in his splendid works" (Sir. 38:6). Human capabilities and imagination originate from God and, when utilized appropriately, glorify God by showing his knowledge and goodness. Due to this, when we ask ourselves what it suggests to "be human," we can not leave out a factor to consider of our scientific and technological capabilities.
3. It is within this perspective that today Note addresses the anthropological and ethical difficulties raised by AI-issues that are particularly substantial, as one of the goals of this innovation is to mimic the human intelligence that designed it. For instance, unlike numerous other human productions, AI can be trained on the results of human creativity and then create new "artifacts" with a level of speed and skill that often matches or surpasses what humans can do, such as producing text or images indistinguishable from human structures. This raises important concerns about AI's possible function in the growing crisis of reality in the public forum. Moreover, this innovation is developed to learn and make certain options autonomously, adapting to brand-new circumstances and supplying services not foreseen by its developers, and thus, it raises essential concerns about ethical duty and human security, with more comprehensive ramifications for society as a whole. This new scenario has prompted many individuals to reflect on what it means to be human and the function of mankind on the planet.
4. Taking all this into account, there is broad consensus that AI marks a brand-new and considerable stage in humankind's engagement with technology, putting it at the heart of what Pope Francis has explained as an "epochal change." [2] Its impact is felt globally and in a wide variety of locations, including interpersonal relationships, education, work, art, healthcare, law, warfare, and global relations. As AI advances quickly towards even greater achievements, it is seriously essential to consider its anthropological and ethical implications. This includes not just mitigating threats and avoiding harm but also guaranteeing that its applications are utilized to promote human development and the typical good.
5. To contribute favorably to the discernment relating to AI, and in action to Pope Francis' require a renewed "wisdom of heart," [3] the Church uses its experience through the anthropological and ethical reflections contained in this Note. Committed to its active function in the global dialogue on these concerns, the Church welcomes those delegated with transferring the faith-including moms and dads, teachers, pastors, and bishops-to commit themselves to this crucial subject with care and attention. While this file is meant specifically for them, it is also implied to be available to a broader audience, especially those who share the conviction that clinical and technological advances should be directed toward serving the human individual and the typical good. [4]
6. To this end, the file begins by differentiating in between concepts of intelligence in AI and in human intelligence. It then checks out the Christian understanding of human intelligence, providing a framework rooted in the Church's philosophical and doctrinal custom. Finally, the document uses guidelines to ensure that the advancement and usage of AI maintain human dignity and promote the essential development of the human person and society.
7. The idea of "intelligence" in AI has progressed in time, making use of a series of ideas from different disciplines. While its origins extend back centuries, a significant milestone took place in 1956 when the American computer system scientist John McCarthy arranged a summer workshop at Dartmouth University to explore the problem of "Artificial Intelligence," which he defined as "that of making a device behave in methods that would be called intelligent if a human were so acting." [5] This workshop introduced a research program concentrated on developing machines capable of carrying out tasks typically related to the human intellect and intelligent behavior.
8. Since then, AI research has actually advanced rapidly, resulting in the advancement of complex systems capable of performing highly sophisticated jobs. [6] These so-called "narrow AI" systems are normally developed to manage particular and minimal functions, such as equating languages, anticipating the trajectory of a storm, classifying images, addressing concerns, or creating visual material at the user's demand. While the meaning of "intelligence" in AI research differs, most contemporary AI systems-particularly those utilizing machine learning-rely on statistical reasoning instead of logical deduction. By evaluating large datasets to identify patterns, AI can "forecast" [7] results and propose brand-new techniques, mimicking some cognitive procedures normal of human problem-solving. Such achievements have actually been made possible through advances in calculating innovation (including neural networks, unsupervised artificial intelligence, and evolutionary algorithms) along with hardware developments (such as specialized processors). Together, these innovations make it possible for AI systems to respond to numerous forms of human input, adapt to new circumstances, and even suggest novel solutions not expected by their initial developers. [8]
9. Due to these quick advancements, lots of tasks when managed exclusively by human beings are now turned over to AI. These systems can augment or perhaps supersede what humans are able to do in numerous fields, especially in specialized areas such as information analysis, image acknowledgment, and medical diagnosis. While each "narrow AI" application is developed for a specific job, numerous researchers aim to establish what is referred to as "Artificial General Intelligence" (AGI)-a single system capable of running across all cognitive domains and carrying out any job within the scope of human intelligence. Some even argue that AGI might one day attain the state of "superintelligence," going beyond human intellectual capabilities, or add to "super-longevity" through advances in biotechnology. Others, nevertheless, fear that these possibilities, even if hypothetical, could one day eclipse the human individual, while still others welcome this prospective change. [9]
10. Underlying this and many other point of views on the subject is the implicit assumption that the term "intelligence" can be used in the very same way to describe both human intelligence and AI. Yet, this does not catch the full scope of the idea. When it comes to humans, intelligence is a faculty that pertains to the individual in his or her totality, whereas in the context of AI, "intelligence" is comprehended functionally, typically with the presumption that the activities quality of the human mind can be broken down into digitized actions that machines can reproduce. [10]
11. This practical viewpoint is exemplified by the "Turing Test," which considers a device "intelligent" if a person can not distinguish its behavior from that of a human. [11] However, in this context, the term "behavior" refers just to the efficiency of specific intellectual tasks; it does not represent the full breadth of human experience, which includes abstraction, feelings, imagination, and the aesthetic, ethical, and religious sensibilities. Nor does it include the complete series of expressions characteristic of the human mind. Instead, in the case of AI, the "intelligence" of a system is assessed methodologically, but likewise reductively, based upon its ability to produce proper responses-in this case, those connected with the human intellect-regardless of how those responses are produced.
12. AI's advanced features provide it sophisticated abilities to perform jobs, however not the capability to think. [12] This difference is crucially essential, as the way "intelligence" is specified undoubtedly shapes how we understand the relationship in between human idea and this technology. [13] To appreciate this, one need to remember the richness of the philosophical custom and Christian faith, which provide a deeper and more detailed understanding of intelligence-an understanding that is main to the Church's mentor on the nature, self-respect, and occupation of the human person. [14]
13. From the dawn of human self-reflection, the mind has played a main function in comprehending what it means to be "human." Aristotle observed that "all people by nature desire to understand." [15] This understanding, with its capacity for abstraction that understands the nature and significance of things, sets human beings apart from the animal world. [16] As thinkers, theologians, and psychologists have analyzed the specific nature of this intellectual faculty, they have also explored how human beings comprehend the world and their distinct location within it. Through this exploration, the Christian custom has actually pertained to comprehend the human person as a being including both body and soul-deeply linked to this world and yet transcending it. [17]
14. In the classical tradition, the idea of intelligence is often comprehended through the complementary concepts of "factor" (ratio) and "intellect" (intellectus). These are not different professors however, as Saint Thomas Aquinas explains, they are 2 modes in which the same intelligence operates: "The term intelligence is inferred from the inward grasp of the reality, while the name reason is drawn from the curious and discursive process." [18] This succinct description highlights the two fundamental and complementary dimensions of human intelligence. Intellectus refers to the instinctive grasp of the truth-that is, nabbing it with the "eyes" of the mind-which precedes and grounds argumentation itself. Ratio pertains to reasoning appropriate: the discursive, analytical procedure that causes judgment. Together, intelligence and factor form the 2 aspects of the act of intelligere, "the proper operation of the human being as such." [19]
15. Explaining the human person as a "logical" being does not decrease the person to a specific mode of idea; rather, it recognizes that the capability for intellectual understanding shapes and penetrates all aspects of human activity. [20] Whether exercised well or improperly, this capacity is an intrinsic aspect of humanity. In this sense, the "term 'rational' includes all the capacities of the human person," including those associated to "understanding and comprehending, as well as those of ready, loving, selecting, and preferring; it likewise includes all corporeal functions closely related to these abilities." [21] This detailed perspective underscores how, in the human individual, developed in the "picture of God," factor is incorporated in a way that raises, shapes, and transforms both the individual's will and actions. [22]
16. Christian thought considers the intellectual professors of the human person within the framework of an essential sociology that sees the human being as basically embodied. In the human person, spirit and matter "are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature." [23] Simply put, the soul is not merely the immaterial "part" of the individual contained within the body, nor is the body an external shell housing an intangible "core." Rather, the entire human person is all at once both product and spiritual. This understanding reflects the mentor of Sacred Scripture, which sees the human individual as a being who lives out relationships with God and others (and hence, an authentically spiritual dimension) within and through this embodied presence. [24] The profound significance of this condition is additional brightened by the mystery of the Incarnation, through which God himself handled our flesh and "raised it up to a superb dignity." [25]
17. Although deeply rooted in physical existence, the human individual transcends the material world through the soul, which is "nearly on the horizon of eternity and time." [26] The intelligence's capacity for transcendence and the self-possessed liberty of the will come from the soul, by which the human person "shares in the light of the divine mind." [27] Nevertheless, the human spirit does not exercise its regular mode of understanding without the body. [28] In this method, the intellectual professors of the human person are an integral part of a sociology that acknowledges that the human individual is a "unity of body and soul." [29] Further aspects of this understanding will be developed in what follows.
18. Human beings are "bought by their very nature to interpersonal communion," [30] possessing the capability to understand one another, to offer themselves in love, and to get in into communion with others. Accordingly, human intelligence is not an isolated faculty but is exercised in relationships, discovering its max expression in discussion, cooperation, and uniformity. We discover with others, and we discover through others.
19. The relational orientation of the human individual is ultimately grounded in the everlasting self-giving of the Triune God, whose love is revealed in development and redemption. [31] The human person is "called to share, by understanding and love, in God's own life." [32]
20. This occupation to communion with God is always connected to the call to communion with others. Love of God can not be separated from love for one's next-door neighbor (cf. 1 Jn. 4:20; Mt. 22:37 -39). By the grace of sharing God's life, Christians are also contacted us to imitate Christ's outpouring present (cf. 2 Cor. 9:8 -11; Eph. 5:1 -2) by following his command to "enjoy one another, as I have liked you" (Jn. 13:34). [33] Love and service, echoing the magnificent life of self-giving, go beyond self-interest to react more totally to the human occupation (cf. 1 Jn. 2:9). Much more sublime than knowing numerous things is the dedication to look after one another, for if "I understand all secrets and all understanding [...] however do not have love, I am nothing" (1 Cor. 13:2).
21. Human intelligence is eventually "God's present fashioned for the assimilation of reality." [34] In the dual sense of intellectus-ratio, it allows the individual to check out truths that go beyond mere sensory experience or utility, given that "the desire for fact becomes part of human nature itself. It is an innate residential or commercial property of human factor to ask why things are as they are." [35] Moving beyond the limits of empirical data, human intelligence can "with real certitude attain to reality itself as knowable." [36] While reality remains only partially known, the desire for reality "stimulates factor always to go even more; certainly, it is as if factor were overwhelmed to see that it can always exceed what it has actually already attained." [37] Although Truth in itself goes beyond the boundaries of human intelligence, it irresistibly attracts it. [38] Drawn by this attraction, the human individual is caused seek "realities of a greater order." [39]
22. This innate drive towards the pursuit of truth is specifically evident in the definitely human capabilities for semantic understanding and creativity, [40] through which this search unfolds in a "way that is suitable to the social nature and dignity of the human individual." [41] Likewise, an unfaltering orientation to the truth is vital for charity to be both genuine and universal. [42]
23. The search for reality discovers its greatest expression in openness to truths that transcend the physical and produced world. In God, all facts attain their ultimate and initial significance. [43] Entrusting oneself to God is a "basic decision that engages the entire person." [44] In this method, the human individual becomes completely what he or she is contacted us to be: "the intelligence and the will display their spiritual nature," allowing the person "to act in such a way that recognizes personal flexibility to the complete." [45]
24. The Christian faith comprehends creation as the free act of the Triune God, who, as Saint Bonaventure of Bagnoregio explains, creates "not to increase his magnificence, but to show it forth and to communicate it." [46] Since God creates according to his Wisdom (cf. Wis. 9:9; Jer. 10:12), development is imbued with an intrinsic order that shows God's plan (cf. Gen. 1; Dan. 2:21 -22; Is. 45:18; Ps. 74:12 -17; 104), [47] within which God has called people to presume an unique function: to cultivate and take care of the world. [48]
25. Shaped by the Divine Craftsman, people live out their identity as beings made in imago Dei by "keeping" and "tilling" (cf. Gen. 2:15) creation-using their intelligence and abilities to take care of and establish creation in accord with God's plan. [49] In this, human intelligence shows the Divine Intelligence that produced all things (cf. Gen. 1-2; Jn. 1), [50] constantly sustains them, and guides them to their ultimate purpose in him. [51] Moreover, people are called to establish their abilities in science and innovation, for through them, God is glorified (cf. Sir. 38:6). Thus, in an appropriate relationship with development, people, on the one hand, utilize their intelligence and skill to work together with God in guiding production toward the function to which he has called it. [52] On the other hand, production itself, as Saint Bonaventure observes, assists the human mind to "ascend gradually to the supreme Principle, who is God." [53]
26. In this context, human intelligence ends up being more plainly comprehended as a faculty that forms an integral part of how the entire person engages with truth. Authentic engagement requires embracing the full scope of one's being: spiritual, cognitive, embodied, and relational.
27. This engagement with reality unfolds in numerous ways, as each person, in his or her multifaceted individuality [54], looks for to understand the world, relate to others, fix issues, express imagination, and pursue important wellness through the unified interplay of the various measurements of the individual's intelligence. [55] This includes sensible and linguistic abilities but can also encompass other modes of engaging with reality. Consider the work of an artisan, who "should know how to determine, in inert matter, a specific form that others can not recognize" [56] and bring it forth through insight and useful ability. Indigenous peoples who live near the earth often possess an extensive sense of nature and its cycles. [57] Similarly, a buddy who understands the right word to say or an individual adept at managing human relationships exhibits an intelligence that is "the fruit of self-examination, dialogue and generous encounter in between persons." [58] As Pope Francis observes, "in this age of expert system, we can not forget that poetry and love are necessary to save our mankind." [59]
28. At the heart of the Christian understanding of intelligence is the integration of fact into the moral and spiritual life of the individual, directing his or her actions in light of God's goodness and fact. According to God's plan, intelligence, in its max sense, likewise consists of the capability to savor what holds true, great, and beautiful. As the twentieth-century French poet Paul Claudel expressed, "intelligence is nothing without delight." [60] Similarly, Dante, upon reaching the greatest paradise in Paradiso, affirms that the culmination of this intellectual delight is discovered in the "light intellectual loaded with love, love of true excellent filled with happiness, delight which goes beyond every sweet taste." [61]
29. An appropriate understanding of human intelligence, therefore, can not be reduced to the simple acquisition of realities or the capability to perform particular tasks. Instead, it involves the person's openness to the ultimate questions of life and reflects an orientation towards the True and the Good. [62] As an expression of the magnificent image within the individual, human intelligence has the capability to access the totality of being, considering presence in its fullness, which surpasses what is measurable, and understanding the meaning of what has been comprehended. For believers, this capacity includes, in a particular way, the capability to grow in the knowledge of the mysteries of God by utilizing reason to engage ever more profoundly with revealed facts (intellectus fidei). [63] True intelligence is shaped by magnificent love, which "is put forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit" (Rom. 5:5). From this, it follows that human intelligence has a vital reflective measurement, an unselfish openness to the True, the Good, and the Beautiful, beyond any utilitarian function.
30. Due to the foregoing conversation, the differences between human intelligence and current AI systems end up being obvious. While AI is a remarkable technological achievement efficient in mimicing certain outputs related to human intelligence, it runs by carrying out jobs, attaining objectives, or making decisions based on quantitative information and computational logic. For instance, with its analytical power, AI stands out at incorporating information from a range of fields, modeling complex systems, and fostering interdisciplinary connections. In this way, it can help experts collaborate in fixing complicated problems that "can not be dealt with from a single point of view or from a single set of interests." [64]
31. However, even as AI procedures and mimics certain expressions of intelligence, it remains basically confined to a logical-mathematical structure, which imposes intrinsic constraints. Human intelligence, in contrast, develops naturally throughout the individual's physical and mental development, shaped by a myriad of lived experiences in the flesh. Although advanced AI systems can "learn" through processes such as artificial intelligence, this sort of training is basically different from the developmental development of human intelligence, which is formed by embodied experiences, including sensory input, emotional responses, social interactions, and the distinct context of each moment. These aspects shape and kind people within their individual history.In contrast, AI, lacking a physique, depends on computational thinking and knowing based upon large datasets that consist of recorded human experiences and knowledge.
32. Consequently, although AI can replicate elements of human reasoning and perform specific tasks with incredible speed and efficiency, its computational capabilities represent just a portion of the wider capabilities of the human mind. For example, AI can not currently reproduce ethical discernment or the ability to establish authentic relationships. Moreover, human intelligence is situated within a personally lived history of intellectual and ethical formation that fundamentally forms the individual's point of view, encompassing the physical, psychological, social, ethical, and spiritual dimensions of life. Since AI can not offer this fullness of understanding, approaches that rely solely on this technology or treat it as the main means of interpreting the world can lead to "a loss of appreciation for the whole, for the relationships in between things, and for the more comprehensive horizon." [65]
33. Human intelligence is not mainly about completing functional jobs but about understanding and actively engaging with truth in all its dimensions; it is also efficient in unexpected insights. Since AI lacks the richness of corporeality, relationality, and the openness of the human heart to reality and goodness, its capacities-though relatively limitless-are unparalleled with the human capability to grasp reality. So much can be gained from an illness, a welcome of reconciliation, and even a simple sunset; certainly, many experiences we have as humans open brand-new horizons and provide the possibility of attaining brand-new wisdom. No gadget, working solely with data, can determine up to these and countless other experiences present in our lives.
34. Drawing an extremely close equivalence between human intelligence and AI risks catching a functionalist point of view, where individuals are valued based upon the work they can carry out. However, a person's worth does not depend upon possessing specific abilities, cognitive and technological achievements, or private success, but on the individual's intrinsic self-respect, grounded in being created in the image of God. [66] This dignity remains undamaged in all circumstances, consisting of for those unable to exercise their capabilities, whether it be a coming child, an unconscious individual, or an older individual who is suffering. [67] It likewise underpins the tradition of human rights (and, in particular, what are now called "neuro-rights"), which represent "a crucial point of merging in the look for common ground" [68] and can, therefore, work as a fundamental ethical guide in discussions on the responsible advancement and use of AI.
35. Considering all these points, as Pope Francis observes, "the extremely usage of the word 'intelligence'" in connection with AI "can prove deceptive" [69] and risks neglecting what is most precious in the human person. Due to this, AI must not be viewed as an artificial type of human intelligence however as an item of it. [70]
36. Given these factors to consider, one can ask how AI can be understood within God's plan. To address this, it is necessary to recall that techno-scientific activity is not neutral in character however is a human endeavor that engages the humanistic and cultural measurements of human creativity. [71]
37. Viewed as a fruit of the possible inscribed within human intelligence, [72] scientific inquiry and the development of technical skills are part of the "cooperation of man and woman with God in refining the noticeable creation." [73] At the very same time, all scientific and technological achievements are, eventually, gifts from God. [74] Therefore, human beings should always use their abilities in view of the higher purpose for which God has actually granted them. [75]
38. We can gratefully acknowledge how innovation has actually "corrected countless evils which utilized to harm and limit humans," [76] a truth for which we need to rejoice. Nevertheless, not all technological advancements in themselves represent real human progress. [77] The Church is particularly opposed to those applications that threaten the sanctity of life or the self-respect of the human person. [78] Like any human endeavor, technological development should be directed to serve the human person and add to the pursuit of "greater justice, more extensive fraternity, and a more humane order of social relations," which are "more valuable than advances in the technical field." [79] Concerns about the ethical implications of technological development are shared not only within the Church however also amongst many researchers, technologists, and expert associations, who increasingly require ethical reflection to guide this advancement in a responsible way.
39. To deal with these obstacles, it is necessary to highlight the significance of ethical obligation grounded in the dignity and occupation of the human person. This directing concept also applies to questions worrying AI. In this context, the ethical dimension takes on main importance since it is people who create systems and identify the functions for which they are used. [80] Between a machine and a human, only the latter is truly an ethical agent-a subject of ethical duty who exercises freedom in his or her choices and accepts their consequences. [81] It is not the device however the human who remains in relationship with reality and goodness, assisted by an ethical conscience that calls the person "to love and to do what is great and to prevent wicked," [82] attesting to "the authority of reality in reference to the supreme Good to which the human individual is drawn." [83] Likewise, in between a maker and a human, only the human can be sufficiently self-aware to the point of listening and following the voice of conscience, critical with prudence, and seeking the good that is possible in every circumstance. [84] In reality, all of this also comes from the individual's exercise of intelligence.
40. Like any item of human creativity, AI can be directed towards favorable or unfavorable ends. [85] When used in manner ins which appreciate human self-respect and promote the wellness of individuals and neighborhoods, it can contribute positively to the human vocation. Yet, as in all locations where human beings are called to make decisions, the shadow of evil likewise looms here. Where human flexibility permits the possibility of selecting what is incorrect, the ethical assessment of this technology will require to take into account how it is directed and used.
41. At the very same time, it is not just the ends that are fairly considerable but likewise the methods employed to attain them. Additionally, the general vision and understanding of the human individual ingrained within these systems are essential to consider as well. Technological products show the worldview of their developers, owners, users, and regulators, [86] and have the power to "form the world and engage consciences on the level of values." [87] On a social level, some technological advancements could also reinforce relationships and power characteristics that are irregular with an appropriate understanding of the human individual and society.
42. Therefore, the ends and the ways utilized in a provided application of AI, in addition to the overall vision it incorporates, must all be evaluated to ensure they respect human dignity and promote the common good. [88] As Pope Francis has stated, "the intrinsic self-respect of every male and every female" should be "the crucial requirement in evaluating emerging technologies; these will prove fairly sound to the degree that they help regard that self-respect and increase its expression at every level of human life," [89] including in the social and economic spheres. In this sense, human intelligence plays a crucial role not just in creating and producing innovation however also in directing its use in line with the authentic good of the human individual. [90] The responsibility for managing this sensibly pertains to every level of society, assisted by the concept of subsidiarity and other principles of Catholic Social Teaching.
43. The dedication to making sure that AI always supports and promotes the supreme worth of the dignity of every human and the fullness of the human vocation functions as a criterion of discernment for designers, owners, operators, and regulators of AI, along with to its users. It remains valid for each application of the technology at every level of its usage.
44. An assessment of the ramifications of this assisting concept could start by thinking about the importance of moral responsibility. Since complete moral causality belongs just to personal representatives, not synthetic ones, it is important to be able to recognize and define who bears responsibility for the procedures included in AI, especially those efficient in learning, correction, and reprogramming. While bottom-up approaches and very deep neural networks allow AI to resolve intricate problems, they make it tough to understand the procedures that result in the services they embraced. This complicates responsibility because if an AI unwanted outcomes, determining who is accountable becomes difficult. To address this problem, attention needs to be offered to the nature of responsibility procedures in complex, extremely automated settings, where results might only become obvious in the medium to long term. For this, it is essential that supreme obligation for decisions made using AI rests with the human decision-makers which there is accountability for making use of AI at each phase of the decision-making process. [91]
45. In addition to identifying who is responsible, it is important to recognize the goals offered to AI systems. Although these systems might utilize unsupervised autonomous learning mechanisms and in some cases follow courses that people can not rebuild, they eventually pursue goals that human beings have designated to them and are governed by processes established by their designers and programmers. Yet, this presents a difficulty since, as AI models become increasingly efficient in independent knowing, the capability to maintain control over them to ensure that such applications serve human functions might efficiently decrease. This raises the important concern of how to make sure that AI systems are purchased for the good of people and not against them.
46. While responsibility for the ethical use of AI systems starts with those who establish, produce, manage, and manage such systems, it is likewise shared by those who use them. As Pope Francis kept in mind, the device "makes a technical choice among a number of possibilities based either on well-defined requirements or on statistical inferences. Humans, however, not just choose, however in their hearts can deciding." [92] Those who utilize AI to achieve a job and follow its outcomes create a context in which they are eventually responsible for the power they have entrusted. Therefore, insofar as AI can help people in making decisions, the algorithms that govern it ought to be reliable, secure, robust enough to deal with inconsistencies, and transparent in their operation to mitigate predispositions and unexpected side impacts. [93] Regulatory frameworks must guarantee that all legal entities remain liable for the use of AI and all its consequences, with appropriate safeguards for openness, personal privacy, and accountability. [94] Moreover, those utilizing AI should take care not to become excessively based on it for their decision-making, a pattern that increases modern society's currently high reliance on innovation.
47. The Church's moral and social teaching supplies resources to help ensure that AI is utilized in a manner that maintains human agency. Considerations about justice, for example, ought to likewise resolve problems such as cultivating just social dynamics, maintaining international security, and promoting peace. By exercising vigilance, people and neighborhoods can recognize ways to use AI to benefit humankind while avoiding applications that could break down human self-respect or harm the environment. In this context, the principle of duty must be understood not just in its most minimal sense but as a "responsibility for the care for others, which is more than merely accounting for outcomes attained." [95]
48. Therefore, AI, like any innovation, can be part of a conscious and accountable answer to humankind's occupation to the good. However, as formerly talked about, AI must be directed by human intelligence to align with this occupation, ensuring it respects the self-respect of the human individual. Recognizing this "exalted self-respect," the Second Vatican Council affirmed that "the social order and its advancement must usually work to the advantage of the human person." [96] Because of this, the usage of AI, as Pope Francis said, must be "accompanied by an ethic inspired by a vision of the common good, an ethic of liberty, duty, and fraternity, capable of promoting the full advancement of individuals in relation to others and to the whole of production." [97]
49. Within this basic viewpoint, some observations follow listed below to illustrate how the preceding arguments can assist offer an ethical orientation in practical circumstances, in line with the "knowledge of heart" that Pope Francis has proposed. [98] While not extensive, this discussion is used in service of the dialogue that considers how AI can be used to maintain the dignity of the human person and promote the typical good. [99]
50. As Pope Francis observed, "the fundamental dignity of each person and the fraternity that binds us together as members of the one human household should undergird the development of brand-new technologies and serve as unassailable requirements for assessing them before they are utilized." [100]
51. Viewed through this lens, AI might "present crucial developments in agriculture, education and culture, an improved level of life for whole countries and peoples, and the growth of human fraternity and social friendship," and thus be "utilized to promote essential human development." [101] AI could likewise assist organizations determine those in requirement and counter discrimination and marginalization. These and other similar applications of this technology might add to human advancement and the common good. [102]
52. However, while AI holds lots of possibilities for promoting the excellent, it can likewise hinder and even counter human advancement and the typical good. Pope Francis has actually noted that "proof to date recommends that digital innovations have increased inequality in our world. Not simply differences in product wealth, which are also considerable, however also differences in access to political and social impact." [103] In this sense, AI might be used to perpetuate marginalization and discrimination, produce brand-new kinds of poverty, expand the "digital divide," and get worse existing social inequalities. [104]
53. Moreover, the concentration of the power over mainstream AI applications in the hands of a couple of effective business raises considerable ethical concerns. Exacerbating this problem is the inherent nature of AI systems, where no single person can exercise total oversight over the large and intricate datasets utilized for calculation. This lack of well-defined responsibility develops the danger that AI might be manipulated for individual or corporate gain or to direct public viewpoint for the benefit of a particular industry. Such entities, motivated by their own interests, possess the capacity to exercise "kinds of control as subtle as they are intrusive, creating mechanisms for the adjustment of consciences and of the democratic procedure." [105]
54. Furthermore, there is the risk of AI being used to promote what Pope Francis has called the "technocratic paradigm," which views all the world's issues as solvable through technological methods alone. [106] In this paradigm, human dignity and fraternity are typically reserved in the name of efficiency, "as if reality, goodness, and fact automatically flow from technological and economic power as such." [107] Yet, human dignity and the typical great needs to never ever be broken for the sake of efficiency, [108] for "technological advancements that do not result in an improvement in the quality of life of all mankind, but on the contrary, intensify inequalities and conflicts, can never ever count as true development. " [109] Instead, AI must be put "at the service of another type of development, one which is healthier, more human, more social, more essential." [110]
55. Attaining this goal needs a much deeper reflection on the relationship in between autonomy and responsibility. Greater autonomy increases everyone's obligation across various elements of communal life. For Christians, the structure of this duty lies in the recognition that all human capabilities, including the person's autonomy, come from God and are implied to be utilized in the service of others. [111] Therefore, rather than merely pursuing economic or technological goals, AI should serve "the common good of the entire human family," which is "the amount total of social conditions that allow individuals, either as groups or as people, to reach their fulfillment more totally and more quickly." [112]
56. The Second Vatican Council observed that "by his inner nature guy is a social being; and if he does not enter into relations with others, he can neither live nor develop his presents." [113] This conviction underscores that living in society is intrinsic to the nature and vocation of the human individual. [114] As social beings, we seek relationships that include mutual exchange and the pursuit of truth, in the course of which, people "show each other the truth they have actually found, or believe they have discovered, in such a way that they assist one another in the search for fact." [115]
57. Such a mission, along with other aspects of human communication, presupposes encounters and shared exchange in between individuals formed by their unique histories, ideas, convictions, and relationships. Nor can we forget that human intelligence is a diverse, diverse, and intricate reality: private and social, reasonable and affective, conceptual and symbolic. Pope Francis underscores this vibrant, keeping in mind that "together, we can seek the reality in discussion, in unwinded discussion or in passionate argument. To do so calls for perseverance; it entails minutes of silence and suffering, yet it can patiently accept the more comprehensive experience of people and peoples. [...] The process of structure fraternity, be it regional or universal, can just be carried out by spirits that are complimentary and available to authentic encounters." [116]
58. It remains in this context that a person can think about the obstacles AI postures to human relationships. Like other technological tools, AI has the potential to promote connections within the human family. However, it might also hinder a real encounter with truth and, ultimately, lead people to "a deep and melancholic frustration with interpersonal relations, or a damaging sense of seclusion." [117] Authentic human relationships require the richness of being with others in their pain, their pleas, and their happiness. [118] Since human intelligence is expressed and enriched likewise in social and embodied methods, authentic and spontaneous encounters with others are vital for engaging with reality in its fullness.
59. Because "real knowledge requires an encounter with reality," [119] the rise of AI introduces another difficulty. Since AI can successfully mimic the products of human intelligence, the capability to understand when one is engaging with a human or a maker can no longer be taken for granted. Generative AI can produce text, speech, images, and other innovative outputs that are normally associated with human beings. Yet, it needs to be comprehended for what it is: a tool, not an individual. [120] This distinction is typically obscured by the language used by practitioners, which tends to anthropomorphize AI and hence blurs the line in between human and machine.
60. Anthropomorphizing AI likewise presents specific obstacles for the development of kids, possibly motivating them to develop patterns of interaction that deal with human relationships in a transactional manner, as one would associate with a chatbot. Such practices might lead young people to see instructors as simple dispensers of details rather than as coaches who guide and support their intellectual and ethical development. Genuine relationships, rooted in empathy and a steadfast dedication to the good of the other, are important and irreplaceable in cultivating the full advancement of the human individual.
61. In this context, it is necessary to clarify that, despite using anthropomorphic language, no AI application can really experience compassion. Emotions can not be reduced to facial expressions or expressions generated in action to triggers; they reflect the way a person, as a whole, connects to the world and to his or her own life, with the body playing a main function. True empathy needs the ability to listen, recognize another's irreducible individuality, invite their otherness, and comprehend the significance behind even their silences. [121] Unlike the world of analytical judgment in which AI stands out, true empathy comes from the relational sphere. It includes intuiting and collaring the lived experiences of another while maintaining the distinction between self and other. [122] While AI can simulate compassionate reactions, it can not reproduce the incomparably individual and relational nature of authentic empathy. [123]
62. Because of the above, it is clear why misrepresenting AI as a person need to constantly be avoided; doing so for deceitful functions is a serious ethical violation that could deteriorate social trust. Similarly, using AI to deceive in other contexts-such as in education or in human relationships, consisting of the sphere of sexuality-is also to be considered immoral and needs mindful oversight to prevent harm, maintain transparency, and make sure the self-respect of all people. [124]
63. In a progressively separated world, some people have turned to AI looking for deep human relationships, simple friendship, or perhaps psychological bonds. However, while human beings are implied to experience genuine relationships, AI can just imitate them. Nevertheless, such relationships with others are an integral part of how an individual grows to become who he or she is meant to be. If AI is used to assist individuals foster authentic connections in between people, it can contribute positively to the complete realization of the person. Conversely, if we replace relationships with God and with others with interactions with innovation, we run the risk of changing authentic relationality with a lifeless image (cf. Ps. 106:20; Rom. 1:22 -23). Instead of pulling away into artificial worlds, we are called to take part in a dedicated and deliberate way with reality, specifically by relating to the poor and suffering, consoling those in grief, and creating bonds of communion with all.
64. Due to its interdisciplinary nature, AI is being progressively incorporated into financial and financial systems. Significant financial investments are currently being made not only in the technology sector but also in energy, finance, and media, particularly in the areas of marketing and sales, logistics, technological development, compliance, and threat management. At the exact same time, AI's applications in these locations have actually also highlighted its ambivalent nature, as a source of significant chances but also profound threats. A very first genuine crucial point in this area worries the possibility that-due to the concentration of AI applications in the hands of a few corporations-only those big companies would gain from the worth created by AI instead of business that use it.
65. Other wider aspects of AI's impact on the economic-financial sphere need to also be carefully examined, particularly worrying the interaction between concrete truth and the digital world. One important consideration in this regard includes the coexistence of varied and alternative types of economic and financial organizations within an offered context. This factor must be encouraged, as it can bring benefits in how it supports the genuine economy by promoting its development and stability, specifically throughout times of crisis. Nevertheless, it should be stressed that digital truths, not limited by any spatial bonds, tend to be more homogeneous and impersonal than communities rooted in a particular place and a particular history, with a typical journey characterized by shared worths and hopes, but also by inevitable disagreements and divergences. This variety is an undeniable property to a community's financial life. Turning over the economy and financing totally to digital innovation would lower this variety and richness. As a result, many services to financial issues that can be reached through natural dialogue in between the included celebrations may no longer be attainable in a world dominated by treatments and only the appearance of proximity.
66. Another area where AI is already having an extensive effect is the world of work. As in many other fields, AI is driving basic transformations across numerous occupations, with a variety of results. On the one hand, it has the potential to enhance proficiency and productivity, develop new tasks, enable employees to focus on more innovative jobs, and open new horizons for imagination and innovation.
67. However, while AI guarantees to boost performance by taking control of ordinary tasks, it regularly requires employees to adjust to the speed and demands of machines rather than devices being created to support those who work. As a result, contrary to the marketed advantages of AI, present techniques to the innovation can paradoxically deskill employees, subject them to automated monitoring, and relegate them to rigid and repeated jobs. The need to stay up to date with the speed of technology can wear down employees' sense of agency and suppress the ingenious abilities they are expected to bring to their work. [125]
68. AI is currently removing the requirement for some jobs that were once carried out by people. If AI is used to replace human workers rather than complement them, there is a "significant threat of out of proportion advantage for the few at the price of the impoverishment of numerous." [126] Additionally, as AI ends up being more powerful, there is an associated danger that human labor may lose its value in the economic world. This is the sensible effect of the technocratic paradigm: a world of humanity oppressed to effectiveness, where, ultimately, the expense of humankind should be cut. Yet, human lives are intrinsically valuable, independent of their financial output. Nevertheless, the "existing design," Pope Francis explains, "does not appear to favor a financial investment in efforts to assist the slow, the weak, or the less talented to find chances in life." [127] In light of this, "we can not enable a tool as powerful and indispensable as Artificial Intelligence to enhance such a paradigm, but rather, we should make Artificial Intelligence a bulwark against its growth." [128]
69. It is very important to keep in mind that "the order of things must be subordinate to the order of individuals, and not the other method around." [129] Human work needs to not just be at the service of profit however at "the service of the entire human individual [...] taking into consideration the person's product needs and the requirements of his or her intellectual, moral, spiritual, and spiritual life." [130] In this context, the Church recognizes that work is "not only a way of making one's daily bread" but is likewise "an important dimension of social life" and "a way [...] of individual development, the building of healthy relationships, self-expression and the exchange of gifts. Work gives us a sense of shared responsibility for the development of the world, and eventually, for our life as a people." [131]
70. Since work is a "part of the significance of life on this earth, a path to development, human advancement and individual fulfillment," "the goal needs to not be that technological development significantly replaces human work, for this would be destructive to humankind" [132] -rather, it needs to promote human labor. Seen in this light, AI needs to assist, not replace, human judgment. Similarly, it needs to never degrade imagination or reduce employees to mere "cogs in a maker." Therefore, "regard for the self-respect of laborers and the value of work for the financial wellness of people, households, and societies, for job security and just wages, should be a high top priority for the worldwide community as these forms of technology penetrate more deeply into our offices." [133]
71. As participants in God's recovery work, healthcare specialists have the occupation and duty to be "guardians and servants of human life." [134] Because of this, the healthcare occupation brings an "intrinsic and undeniable ethical measurement," acknowledged by the Hippocratic Oath, which obliges physicians and health care professionals to commit themselves to having "absolute regard for human life and its sacredness." [135] Following the example of the Do-gooder, this dedication is to be brought out by males and females "who decline the creation of a society of exclusion, and act instead as next-door neighbors, raising up and fixing up the fallen for the sake of the typical good." [136]
72. Seen in this light, AI appears to hold enormous potential in a range of applications in the medical field, such as assisting the diagnostic work of health care suppliers, facilitating relationships in between clients and medical personnel, offering new treatments, and expanding access to quality care also for those who are isolated or marginalized. In these ways, the technology could boost the "caring and loving nearness" [137] that health care service providers are contacted us to reach the ill and suffering.
73. However, if AI is used not to boost however to change the relationship between clients and healthcare providers-leaving clients to interact with a device instead of a human being-it would lower a most importantly crucial human relational structure to a centralized, impersonal, and unequal framework. Instead of encouraging solidarity with the ill and suffering, such applications of AI would risk getting worse the isolation that typically accompanies illness, specifically in the context of a culture where "persons are no longer viewed as a paramount worth to be cared for and appreciated." [138] This misuse of AI would not align with regard for the dignity of the human individual and uniformity with the suffering.
74. Responsibility for the well-being of clients and the choices that discuss their lives are at the heart of the healthcare profession. This accountability needs medical specialists to exercise all their skill and intelligence in making well-reasoned and fairly grounded options concerning those entrusted to their care, always respecting the inviolable dignity of the patients and the need for informed approval. As a result, choices relating to patient treatment and the weight of responsibility they entail must constantly remain with the human individual and should never ever be delegated to AI. [139]
75. In addition, using AI to identify who must get treatment based mainly on economic steps or metrics of performance represents a particularly problematic circumstances of the "technocratic paradigm" that should be turned down. [140] For, "enhancing resources implies using them in an ethical and fraternal method, and not punishing the most delicate." [141] Additionally, AI tools in healthcare are "exposed to kinds of predisposition and discrimination," where "systemic mistakes can easily multiply, producing not just injustices in private cases but likewise, due to the domino impact, genuine kinds of social inequality." [142]
76. The combination of AI into health care also presents the danger of amplifying other existing variations in access to medical care. As healthcare ends up being significantly oriented towards prevention and lifestyle-based methods, AI-driven services may unintentionally favor more affluent populations who currently take pleasure in much better access to medical resources and quality nutrition. This trend risks reinforcing a "medicine for the abundant" model, where those with financial ways gain from sophisticated preventative tools and individualized health details while others battle to gain access to even standard services. To avoid such inequities, fair structures are required to guarantee that the use of AI in healthcare does not aggravate existing health care inequalities however rather serves the typical good.
77. The words of the Second Vatican Council remain fully pertinent today: "True education aims to form people with a view towards their last end and the good of the society to which they belong." [143] As such, education is "never a mere procedure of handing down realities and intellectual abilities: rather, its aim is to add to the person's holistic development in its various aspects (intellectual, cultural, spiritual, etc), consisting of, for example, neighborhood life and relations within the scholastic neighborhood," [144] in keeping with the nature and dignity of the human person.
78. This approach includes a commitment to cultivating the mind, but constantly as a part of the important advancement of the individual: "We should break that concept of education which holds that educating ways filling one's head with concepts. That is the way we inform robots, cerebral minds, not people. Educating is taking a risk in the stress in between the mind, the heart, and the hands." [145]
79. At the center of this work of forming the whole human person is the important relationship between teacher and trainee. Teachers do more than convey knowledge; they design necessary human qualities and influence the delight of discovery. [146] Their presence encourages trainees both through the content they teach and the care they show for their trainees. This bond fosters trust, good understanding, and the capability to deal with everyone's special dignity and potential. On the part of the trainee, this can create an authentic desire to grow. The physical presence of a teacher develops a relational dynamic that AI can not replicate, one that deepens engagement and nurtures the trainee's integral development.
80. In this context, AI provides both opportunities and difficulties. If used in a prudent way, within the context of an existing teacher-student relationship and bought to the genuine objectives of education, AI can become a valuable academic resource by enhancing access to education, offering tailored assistance, and offering instant feedback to trainees. These benefits could improve the knowing experience, specifically in cases where customized attention is needed, or academic resources are otherwise scarce.
81. Nevertheless, a vital part of education is forming "the intellect to reason well in all matters, to connect towards truth, and to understand it," [147] while helping the "language of the head" to grow harmoniously with the "language of the heart" and the "language of the hands." [148] This is all the more crucial in an age marked by innovation, in which "it is no longer merely a concern of 'using' instruments of interaction, however of living in an extremely digitalized culture that has had an extensive effect on [...] our ability to communicate, find out, be informed and participate in relationship with others." [149] However, rather of fostering "a cultivated intelligence," which "brings with it a power and a grace to every work and profession that it carries out," [150] the extensive use of AI in education might lead to the trainees' increased reliance on technology, deteriorating their capability to carry out some skills separately and aggravating their dependence on screens. [151]
82. Additionally, while some AI systems are developed to help individuals establish their important thinking abilities and problem-solving abilities, many others simply offer answers instead of prompting trainees to reach answers themselves or write text on their own. [152] Instead of training young individuals how to accumulate details and create quick actions, education needs to motivate "the accountable use of liberty to deal with issues with excellent sense and intelligence." [153] Building on this, "education in the usage of types of artificial intelligence should aim above all at promoting vital thinking. Users of any ages, however especially the young, need to develop a critical technique to making use of data and content collected on the web or produced by synthetic intelligence systems. Schools, universities, and scientific societies are challenged to help trainees and specialists to grasp the social and ethical elements of the advancement and usages of innovation." [154]
83. As Saint John Paul II recalled, "on the planet today, defined by such quick advancements in science and technology, the tasks of a Catholic University assume an ever higher value and seriousness." [155] In a particular way, Catholic universities are urged to be present as great laboratories of hope at this crossroads of history. In an inter-disciplinary and cross-disciplinary secret, they are advised to engage "with wisdom and creativity" [156] in cautious research on this phenomenon, assisting to extract the salutary capacity within the numerous fields of science and reality, and directing them constantly towards fairly sound applications that plainly serve the cohesion of our societies and the common excellent, reaching new frontiers in the discussion between faith and factor.
84. Moreover, it must be kept in mind that present AI programs have been known to provide biased or fabricated details, which can lead trainees to trust inaccurate material. This problem "not only risks of legitimizing fake news and strengthening a dominant culture's benefit, however, in short, it likewise weakens the instructional process itself." [157] With time, clearer differences may emerge in between appropriate and incorrect usages of AI in education and research. Yet, a decisive guideline is that the usage of AI need to constantly be transparent and never ever misrepresented.
85. AI could be used as an aid to human dignity if it helps individuals understand intricate concepts or directs them to sound resources that support their look for the truth. [158]
86. However, AI also provides a serious danger of creating controlled material and false details, which can quickly mislead individuals due to its resemblance to the fact. Such false information may take place accidentally, as when it comes to AI "hallucination," where a generative AI system yields results that appear real however are not. Since creating content that mimics human artifacts is main to AI's performance, mitigating these dangers proves challenging. Yet, the consequences of such aberrations and false details can be quite severe. For this factor, all those included in producing and using AI systems need to be committed to the truthfulness and precision of the details processed by such systems and shared to the public.
87. While AI has a latent potential to create incorrect details, a much more unpleasant issue lies in the intentional abuse of AI for manipulation. This can happen when people or companies purposefully produce and spread out incorrect content with the aim to deceive or trigger damage, such as "deepfake" images, videos, and audio-referring to an incorrect representation of an individual, modified or created by an AI algorithm. The danger of deepfakes is especially evident when they are used to target or harm others. While the images or videos themselves may be synthetic, the damage they trigger is genuine, leaving "deep scars in the hearts of those who suffer it" and "genuine injuries in their human dignity." [159]
88. On a more comprehensive scale, by distorting "our relationship with others and with reality," [160] AI-generated fake media can slowly weaken the foundations of society. This problem needs cautious policy, as misinformation-especially through AI-controlled or affected media-can spread accidentally, sustaining political polarization and social unrest. When society becomes indifferent to the fact, various groups construct their own versions of "facts," weakening the "reciprocal ties and shared dependencies" [161] that underpin the fabric of social life. As deepfakes trigger individuals to question everything and AI-generated false material deteriorates trust in what they see and hear, polarization and dispute will just grow. Such extensive deception is no unimportant matter; it strikes at the core of mankind, taking apart the fundamental trust on which societies are built. [162]
89. Countering AI-driven frauds is not only the work of market experts-it needs the efforts of all individuals of goodwill. "If innovation is to serve human self-respect and not damage it, and if it is to promote peace rather than violence, then the human neighborhood must be proactive in attending to these trends with respect to human dignity and the promotion of the good." [163] Those who produce and share AI-generated content needs to always work out diligence in validating the reality of what they share and, in all cases, should "prevent the sharing of words and images that are degrading of humans, that promote hatred and intolerance, that debase the goodness and intimacy of human sexuality or that make use of the weak and susceptible." [164] This requires the ongoing prudence and cautious discernment of all users concerning their activity online. [165]
90. Humans are inherently relational, and the data everyone produces in the digital world can be viewed as an objectified expression of this relational nature. Data communicates not just details but likewise individual and relational understanding, which, in a significantly digitized context, can total up to power over the individual. Moreover, while some types of data may pertain to public elements of an individual's life, others might touch upon the person's interiority, possibly even their conscience. Seen in this way, privacy plays an essential role in securing the limits of an individual's inner life, maintaining their freedom to connect to others, reveal themselves, and make decisions without excessive control. This security is likewise tied to the defense of spiritual flexibility, as surveillance can likewise be misused to apply control over the lives of followers and how they reveal their faith.
91. It is proper, for that reason, to resolve the problem of personal privacy from a concern for the legitimate liberty and inalienable dignity of the human individual "in all situations." [166] The Second Vatican Council included the right "to secure privacy" amongst the essential rights "essential for living a really human life," a right that ought to be reached all individuals on account of their "sublime self-respect." [167] Furthermore, the Church has likewise affirmed the right to the legitimate respect for a private life in the context of affirming the person's right to an excellent reputation, defense of their physical and psychological integrity, and flexibility from harm or undue invasion [168] -vital components of the due respect for the intrinsic dignity of the human person. [169]
92. Advances in AI-powered data processing and analysis now make it possible to infer patterns in a person's habits and believing from even a percentage of details, making the role of information personal privacy much more crucial as a protect for the dignity and relational nature of the human person. As Pope Francis observed, "while closed and intolerant attitudes towards others are on the rise, distances are otherwise shrinking or disappearing to the point that the right to personal privacy hardly exists. Everything has actually ended up being a type of phenomenon to be examined and examined, and individuals's lives are now under continuous security." [170]
93. While there can be genuine and correct methods to utilize AI in keeping with human dignity and the common great, utilizing it for surveillance aimed at exploiting, restricting others' freedom, or benefitting a couple of at the cost of the numerous is unjustifiable. The threat of security overreach need to be kept an eye on by proper regulators to guarantee transparency and public accountability. Those responsible for surveillance needs to never ever exceed their authority, which must constantly prefer the dignity and freedom of every individual as the vital basis of a simply and humane society.
94. Furthermore, "essential regard for human self-respect demands that we decline to enable the originality of the individual to be recognized with a set of data." [171] This particularly uses when AI is utilized to assess people or groups based on their habits, attributes, or history-a practice referred to as "social scoring": "In social and financial decision-making, we ought to be careful about entrusting judgments to algorithms that process data, frequently collected surreptitiously, on a person's makeup and prior behavior. Such information can be infected by societal prejudices and preconceptions. A person's previous habits must not be used to deny him or her the chance to change, grow, and add to society. We can not permit algorithms to limit or condition regard for human self-respect, or to leave out empathy, mercy, forgiveness, and above all, the hope that individuals have the ability to change." [172]
95. AI has many appealing applications for improving our relationship with our "common home," such as developing models to forecast severe environment events, proposing engineering options to reduce their effect, handling relief operations, and predicting population shifts. [173] Additionally, AI can support sustainable agriculture, optimize energy use, and offer early caution systems for public health emergencies. These improvements have the possible to strengthen durability against climate-related obstacles and promote more sustainable development.
96. At the same time, existing AI models and the hardware needed to support them consume large quantities of energy and water, substantially contributing to CO2 emissions and straining resources. This truth is often obscured by the method this technology is provided in the popular creativity, where words such as "the cloud" [174] can give the impression that information is stored and processed in an intangible realm, detached from the real world. However, "the cloud" is not an ethereal domain separate from the physical world; just like all computing innovations, it depends on physical makers, cables, and energy. The same is real of the technology behind AI. As these systems grow in intricacy, specifically big language designs (LLMs), they require ever-larger datasets, increased computational power, and higher storage facilities. Considering the heavy toll these innovations handle the environment, it is important to establish sustainable services that reduce their influence on our common home.
97. Even then, as Pope Francis teaches, it is essential "that we try to find options not only in technology however in a change of humanity." [175] A complete and genuine understanding of creation recognizes that the worth of all produced things can not be lowered to their mere utility. Therefore, a totally human technique to the stewardship of the earth rejects the distorted anthropocentrism of the technocratic paradigm, which seeks to "draw out whatever possible" from the world, [176] and rejects the "myth of development," which assumes that "eco-friendly issues will resolve themselves just with the application of brand-new technology and with no requirement for ethical factors to consider or deep modification." [177] Such a frame of mind must pave the way to a more holistic technique that respects the order of development and promotes the essential good of the human individual while safeguarding our typical home. [178]
98. The Second Vatican Council and the consistent teaching of the Popes since then have actually insisted that peace is not simply the absence of war and is not limited to maintaining a balance of powers between enemies. Instead, in the words of Saint Augustine, peace is "the tranquility of order." [179] Certainly, peace can not be attained without protecting the goods of individuals, free interaction, regard for the self-respect of individuals and peoples, and the assiduous practice of fraternity. Peace is the work of justice and the effect of charity and can not be attained through force alone; rather, it should be mainly constructed through patient diplomacy, the active promo of justice, uniformity, integral human development, and regard for the self-respect of all individuals. [180] In this method, the tools used to maintain peace should never ever be allowed to justify injustice, violence, or injustice. Instead, they must constantly be governed by a "firm decision to respect other people and countries, in addition to their dignity, as well as the purposeful practice of fraternity." [181]
99. While AI's analytical capabilities could assist nations seek peace and guarantee security, the "weaponization of Artificial Intelligence" can likewise be highly problematic. Pope Francis has observed that "the ability to carry out military operations through push-button control systems has actually resulted in a lessened understanding of the devastation triggered by those weapon systems and the concern of responsibility for their use, leading to a a lot more cold and removed technique to the tremendous disaster of war." [182] Moreover, the ease with which self-governing weapons make war more feasible militates against the concept of war as a last resort in legitimate self-defense, [183] possibly increasing the instruments of war well beyond the scope of human oversight and speeding up a destabilizing arms race, with devastating effects for human rights. [184]
100. In specific, Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems, which can determining and striking targets without direct human intervention, are a "cause for grave ethical issue" due to the fact that they do not have the "unique human capacity for ethical judgment and ethical decision-making." [185] For this factor, Pope Francis has actually urgently called for a reconsideration of the advancement of these weapons and a prohibition on their usage, starting with "a reliable and concrete commitment to present ever greater and appropriate human control. No device ought to ever choose to take the life of a human being." [186]
101. Since it is a little step from makers that can eliminate autonomously with accuracy to those efficient in massive damage, some AI researchers have expressed issues that such technology presents an "existential risk" by having the possible to act in ways that might threaten the survival of entire regions or perhaps of humanity itself. This threat demands severe attention, reflecting the long-standing issue about innovations that approve war "an uncontrollable harmful power over multitudes of innocent civilians," [187] without even sparing children. In this context, the call from Gaudium et Spes to "undertake an assessment of war with an entirely brand-new mindset" [188] is more immediate than ever.
102. At the very same time, while the theoretical threats of AI deserve attention, the more immediate and pushing concern depends on how individuals with harmful intentions may abuse this innovation. [189] Like any tool, AI is an extension of human power, and while its future capabilities are unforeseeable, humankind's past actions supply clear cautions. The atrocities dedicated throughout history are adequate to raise deep issues about the potential abuses of AI.
103. Saint John Paul II observed that "humanity now has instruments of extraordinary power: we can turn this world into a garden, or reduce it to a pile of rubble." [190] Given this fact, the Church reminds us, in the words of Pope Francis, that "we are free to use our intelligence towards things evolving positively," or towards "decadence and shared destruction." [191] To avoid mankind from spiraling into self-destruction, [192] there should be a clear stand against all applications of technology that inherently threaten human life and dignity. This commitment requires mindful discernment about making use of AI, particularly in military defense applications, to ensure that it always appreciates human dignity and serves the common good. The advancement and release of AI in weaponries need to undergo the highest levels of ethical examination, governed by a concern for human dignity and the sanctity of life. [193]
104. Technology provides amazing tools to manage and establish the world's resources. However, in some cases, mankind is significantly delivering control of these resources to makers. Within some circles of researchers and futurists, there is optimism about the potential of artificial basic intelligence (AGI), a hypothetical form of AI that would match or exceed human intelligence and cause inconceivable developments. Some even speculate that AGI could attain superhuman abilities. At the same time, as society wanders away from a connection with the transcendent, some are lured to turn to AI in search of significance or fulfillment-longings that can just be genuinely pleased in communion with God. [194]
105. However, the anticipation of replacing God for an artifact of human making is idolatry, a practice Scripture explicitly alerts against (e.g., Ex. 20:4; 32:1 -5; 34:17). Moreover, AI might prove a lot more sexy than conventional idols for, unlike idols that "have mouths but do not speak; eyes, but do not see; ears, however do not hear" (Ps. 115:5 -6), AI can "speak," or at least gives the impression of doing so (cf. Rev. 13:15). Yet, it is crucial to bear in mind that AI is however a pale reflection of humanity-it is crafted by human minds, trained on human-generated product, responsive to human input, and sustained through human labor. AI can not possess numerous of the capabilities specific to human life, and it is likewise fallible. By turning to AI as a perceived "Other" higher than itself, with which to share presence and duties, humanity dangers developing an alternative for God. However, it is not AI that is eventually deified and worshipped, however mankind itself-which, in this method, becomes enslaved to its own work. [195]
106. While AI has the possible to serve humankind and contribute to the typical good, it remains a production of human hands, bearing "the imprint of human art and resourcefulness" (Acts 17:29). It should never ever be ascribed excessive worth. As the Book of Wisdom verifies: "For a male made them, and one whose spirit is obtained formed them; for no male can form a god which is like himself. He is mortal, and what he makes with lawless hands is dead, for he is much better than the things he worships given that he has life, but they never ever have" (Wis. 15:16 -17).
107. In contrast, humans, "by their interior life, go beyond the whole product universe; they experience this deep interiority when they participate in their own heart, where God, who probes the heart, awaits them, and where they choose their own fate in the sight of God." [196] It is within the heart, as Pope Francis reminds us, that each private finds the "mysterious connection between self-knowledge and openness to others, between the encounter with one's personal originality and the willingness to give oneself to others. " [197] Therefore, it is the heart alone that is "capable of setting our other powers and passions, and our entire person, in a position of respect and loving obedience before the Lord," [198] who "offers to deal with each one of us as a 'Thou,' always and permanently." [199]
108. Considering the numerous obstacles posed by advances in technology, Pope Francis stressed the requirement for growth in "human responsibility, values, and conscience," proportionate to the development in the capacity that this technology brings [200] -recognizing that "with an increase in human power comes a widening of duty on the part of people and communities." [201]
109. At the same time, the "necessary and essential concern" remains "whether in the context of this development male, as male, is becoming really much better, that is to say, more fully grown spiritually, more familiar with the dignity of his humankind, more responsible, more available to others, especially the neediest and the weakest, and readier to provide and to aid all." [202]
110. As an outcome, it is crucial to know how to evaluate specific applications of AI in specific contexts to determine whether its use promotes human self-respect, the occupation of the human person, and the typical good. As with numerous technologies, the results of the numerous usages of AI may not constantly be foreseeable from their creation. As these applications and their social effects end up being clearer, suitable actions need to be made at all levels of society, following the principle of subsidiarity. Individual users, families, civil society, corporations, organizations, federal governments, and worldwide companies ought to operate at their correct levels to make sure that AI is used for the good of all.
111. A considerable obstacle and opportunity for the typical great today depends on considering AI within a structure of relational intelligence, which highlights the interconnectedness of people and communities and highlights our shared obligation for fostering the integral well-being of others. The twentieth-century theorist Nicholas Berdyaev observed that individuals often blame makers for personal and social issues; however, "this only embarrasses man and does not represent his self-respect," for "it is unworthy to move obligation from guy to a machine." [203] Only the human person can be ethically accountable, and the obstacles of a technological society are ultimately spiritual in nature. Therefore, facing those difficulties "needs an augmentation of spirituality." [204]
112. An additional point to think about is the call, triggered by the appearance of AI on the world phase, for a renewed appreciation of all that is human. Years back, the French Catholic author Georges Bernanos alerted that "the risk is not in the multiplication of devices, but in the ever-increasing number of males accustomed from their childhood to desire just what machines can offer." [205] This obstacle is as real today as it was then, as the quick speed of digitization risks a "digital reductionism," where non-quantifiable aspects of life are reserved and then forgotten and even considered irrelevant due to the fact that they can not be computed in official terms. AI needs to be used just as a tool to complement human intelligence instead of replace its richness. [206] Cultivating those aspects of human life that transcend computation is vital for maintaining "a genuine mankind" that "seems to stay in the middle of our technological culture, practically undetected, like a mist permeating gently underneath a closed door." [207]
113. The huge expanse of the world's knowledge is now available in manner ins which would have filled past generations with awe. However, to guarantee that improvements in understanding do not become humanly or spiritually barren, one must go beyond the mere accumulation of data and aim to attain real wisdom. [208]
114. This knowledge is the present that humankind needs most to attend to the extensive concerns and ethical challenges postured by AI: "Only by embracing a spiritual way of seeing truth, only by recuperating a knowledge of the heart, can we face and interpret the newness of our time." [209] Such "wisdom of the heart" is "the virtue that enables us to incorporate the whole and its parts, our choices and their effects." It "can not be looked for from devices," however it "lets itself be discovered by those who seek it and be seen by those who love it; it prepares for those who desire it, and it enters search of those who are deserving of it (cf. Wis 6:12 -16)." [210]
115. In a world marked by AI, we require the grace of the Holy Spirit, who "enables us to take a look at things with God's eyes, to see connections, scenarios, events and to uncover their genuine significance." [211]
116. Since a "person's excellence is measured not by the details or knowledge they have, however by the depth of their charity," [212] how we incorporate AI "to consist of the least of our bros and sisters, the susceptible, and those most in need, will be the real measure of our humankind." [213] The "knowledge of the heart" can illuminate and guide the human-centered use of this technology to help promote the typical great, take care of our "typical home," advance the search for the reality, foster important human development, prefer human solidarity and fraternity, and lead humankind to its ultimate goal: joy and full communion with God. [214]
117. From this point of view of knowledge, followers will be able to act as ethical representatives efficient in utilizing this innovation to promote an authentic vision of the human person and society. [215] This should be done with the understanding that technological development is part of God's prepare for creation-an activity that we are called to purchase toward the Paschal Mystery of Jesus Christ, in the consistent search for the True and the Good.
The Supreme Pontiff, Francis, at the Audience approved on 14 January 2025 to the undersigned Prefects and Secretaries of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Dicastery for Culture and Education, authorized this Note and purchased its publication.
Given in Rome, at the workplaces of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Dicastery for Culture and Education, on 28 January 2025, the Liturgical Memorial of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church.
Ex audientia die 14 ianuarii 2025
Franciscus
Contents
I. Introduction
II. What is Artificial Intelligence?
III. Intelligence in the Philosophical and Theological Tradition
Rationality
Embodiment
Relationality
Relationship with the Truth
Stewardship of the World
An Essential Understanding of Human Intelligence
The Limits of AI
IV. The Role of Ethics in Guiding the Development and Use of AI
Helping Human Freedom and Decision-Making
V. Specific Questions
AI and Society
AI and Human Relationships
AI, wolvesbaneuo.com the Economy, and Labor
AI and Healthcare
AI and Education
AI, Misinformation, Deepfakes, and Abuse
AI, Privacy, and Surveillance
AI and the Protection of Our Common Home
AI and Warfare
AI and Our Relationship with God
VI. Concluding Reflections
True Wisdom
[1] Catechism of the Catholic Church, par. 378. See likewise Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (7 December 1965), par. 34: AAS 58 (1966 ), 1052-1053.
[2] Francis, Address to the Participants in the Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Academy for Life (28 February 2020): AAS 112 (2020 ), 307. Cf. Id., Christmas Greetings to the Roman Curia (21 December 2019): AAS 112 (2020 ), 43.
[3] Cf. Francis, Message for the LVIII World Day of Social Communications (24 January 2024): L'Osservatore Romano, 24 January 2024, 8.
[4] Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, par. 2293; Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (7 December 1965), par. 35: AAS 58 (1966 ), 1053.
[5] J. McCarthy, et al., "A Proposal for the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence" (31 August 1955), http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/history/dartmouth/dartmouth.html (accessed: 21 October 2024).
[6] Cf. Francis, Message for the LVII World Day of Peace (1 January 2024), pars. 2-3: L'Osservatore Romano, 14 December 2023, 2.
[7] Terms in this document explaining the outputs or processes of AI are utilized figuratively to explain its operations and are not intended to anthropomorphize the maker.
[8] Cf. Francis, Address at the G7 Session on Artificial Intelligence in Borgo Egnazia (Puglia) (14 June 2024): L'Osservatore Romano, 14 June 2024, 3; Id., Message for the LVII World Day of Peace (1 January 2024), par. 2: L'Osservatore Romano, 14 December 2023, 2.
[9] Here, one can see the main positions of the "transhumanists" and the "posthumanists." Transhumanists argue that technological developments will make it possible for human beings to conquer their biological constraints and improve both their physical and cognitive abilities. Posthumanists, on the other hand, compete that such advances will eventually modify human identity to the extent that humanity itself may no longer be thought about genuinely "human." Both views rest on a basically negative understanding of human corporality, which treats the body more as a challenge than as an important part of the individual's identity and contact us to full realization. Yet, this unfavorable view of the body is inconsistent with an appropriate understanding of human dignity. While the Church supports real scientific development, it verifies that human dignity is rooted in "the individual as an inseparable unity of body and soul. " Thus, "self-respect is also fundamental in everyone's body, which takes part in its own method remaining in imago Dei" (Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration Dignitas Infinita [8 April 2024], par. 18).
[10] This technique shows a functionalist point of view, which minimizes the human mind to its functions and presumes that its functions can be totally measured in physical or mathematical terms. However, even if a future AGI were to appear really intelligent, it would still remain functional in nature.
[11] Cf. A.M. Turing, "Computing Machinery and Intelligence," Mind 59 (1950) 443-460.
[12] If "thinking" is credited to makers, it should be clarified that this describes calculative thinking instead of critical thinking. Similarly, if devices are said to operate utilizing abstract thought, it needs to be specified that this is limited to computational logic. On the other hand, by its very nature, human thought is a creative procedure that avoids programming and transcends constraints.
[13] On the foundational role of language in shaping understanding, cf. M. Heidegger, Über den Humanismus, Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1949 (en. tr. "Letter on Humanism," in Basic Writings: Martin Heidegger, Routledge, London - New York City 2010, 141-182).
[14] For further conversation of these anthropological and theological structures, see AI Research Group of the Centre for Digital Culture of the Dicastery for Culture and Education, Encountering Artificial Intelligence: Ethical and Anthropological Investigations (Theological Investigations of Artificial Intelligence 1), M.J. Gaudet, N. Herzfeld, P. Scherz, J.J. Wales, eds., Journal of Moral Faith, Pickwick, Eugene 2024, 43-144.
[15] Aristotle, Metaphysics, I. 1, 980 a 21.
[16] Cf. Augustine, De Genesi advertisement litteram III, 20, 30: PL 34, 292: "Man is made in the image of God in relation to that [professors] by which he transcends to the unreasonable animals. Now, this [faculty] is reason itself, or the 'mind,' or 'intelligence,' whatever other name it may more suitably be provided"; Id., Enarrationes in Psalmos 54, 3: PL 36, 629: "When thinking about all that they have, human beings discover that they are most identified from animals exactly by the truth they have intelligence." This is likewise repeated by Saint Thomas Aquinas, who specifies that "male is the most ideal of all earthly beings endowed with motion, and his correct and natural operation is intellection," by which guy abstracts from things and "gets in his mind things actually intelligible" (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles II, 76).
[17] Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (7 December 1965), par. 15: AAS 58 (1966 ), morphomics.science 1036.
[18] Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 49, a. 5, ad 3. Cf. ibid., I, q. 79; II-II, q. 47, a. 3; II-II, q. 49, a. 2. For a contemporary perspective that echoes components of the classical and medieval distinction in between these two modes of cognition, cf. D. Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, New York City 2011.
[19] Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, q. 76, a. 1, resp.
[20] Cf. Irenaeus of Lyon, Adversus Haereses, V, 6, 1: PG 7( 2 ), 1136-1138.
[21] Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration Dignitas Infinita (8 April 2024), par. 9. Cf. Francis, Encyclical Letter Fratelli Tutti (3 October 2020), par. 213: AAS 112 (2020 ), 1045: "The intelligence can investigate the reality of things through reflection, experience and dialogue, and pertain to acknowledge because truth, which transcends it, the basis of certain universal ethical demands."
[22] Cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Doctrinal Note on Some Aspects of Evangelization (3 December 2007), par. 4: AAS 100 (2008 ), 491-492.
[23] Catechism of the Catholic Church, par. 365. Cf. Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, q. 75, a. 4, resp.
[24] Certainly, Sacred Scripture "typically thinks about the human individual as a being who exists in the body and is unimaginable outside of it" (Pontifical Biblical Commission, "Che cosa è l'uomo?" (Sal 8,5): Un itinerario di antropologia biblica [30 September 2019], par. 19). Cf. ibid., pars. 20-21, 43-44, 48.
[25] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (7 December 1965), par. 22: AAS 58 (1966 ), 1042: Cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction Dignitas Personae (8 September 2008), par. 7: AAS 100 (2008 ), 863: "Christ did not disdain human bodiliness, but rather completely revealed its meaning and worth."
[26] Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles II, 81.
[27] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (7 December 1965), par. 15: AAS 58 (1966 ), 1036.
[28] Cf. Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 89, a. 1, resp.: "to be separated from the body is not in accordance with [the soul's] nature [...] and for this reason it is joined to the body in order that it might have an existence and an operation appropriate to its nature."
[29] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (7 December 1965), par. 14: AAS 58 (1966 ), 1035. Cf. Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration Dignitas Infinita (8 April 2024), par. 18.
[30] International Theological Commission, Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God (2004 ), par. 56. Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, par. 357.
[31] Cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction Dignitas Personae (8 September 2008), pars. 5, 8; Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration Dignitas Infinita (8 April 2024), pars. 15, 24, 53-54.
[32] Catechism of the Catholic Church, par. 356. Cf. ibid., par. 221.
[33] Cf. Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration Dignitas Infinita (8 April 2024), pars. 13, 26-27.
[34] Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction Donum Veritatis (24 May 1990), 6: AAS 82 (1990 ), 1552. Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Veritatis Splendor (6 August 1993), par. 109: AAS 85 (1993 ), 1219. Cf. Pseudo-Dionysius, De divinis nominibus, VII, photorum.eclat-mauve.fr 2: PG 3, 868B-C: "Human souls also possess reason and with it they circle in discourse around the fact of things. [...] [O] n account of the manner in which they are capable of focusing the lots of into the one, they too, in their own fashion and as far as they can, deserve conceptions like those of the angels" (en. tr. Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works, Paulist Press, New York - Mahwah 1987, 106-107).
[35] John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Fides et Ratio (14 September 1998), par. 3: AAS 91 (1999 ), 7.
[36] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (7 December 1965), par. 15: AAS 58 (1966 ), 1036.
[37] John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Fides et Ratio (14 September 1998), par. 42: AAS 91 (1999 ), 38. Cf. Francis, Encyclical Letter Fratelli Tutti (3 October 2020), par. 208: AAS 112 (2020 ), 1043: "the human mind is capable of transcending instant issues and understanding certain facts that are imperishable, as true now as in the past. As it peers into humanity, reason discovers universal values obtained from that same nature"; ibid., par. 184: AAS 112 (2020 ), 1034.
[38] Cf. B. Pascal, Pensées, no. 267 (ed. Brunschvicg): "The last case of reason is to acknowledge that there is an infinity of things which are beyond it" (en. tr. Pascal's Pensées, E.P. Dutton, New York City 1958, 77).
[39] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (7 December 1965), par. 15: AAS 58 (1966 ), 1036. Cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Doctrinal Note on Some Aspects of Evangelization (3 December 2007), par. 4: AAS 100 (2008 ), 491-492.
[40] Our semantic capability permits us to understand messages in any form of interaction in a way that both takes into consideration and transcends their material or empirical structures (such as computer system code). Here, intelligence ends up being a wisdom that "allows us to look at things with God's eyes, to see connections, circumstances, occasions and to uncover their genuine significance" (Francis, Message for the LVIII World Day of Social Communications [24 January 2024]: L'Osservatore Romano, 24 January 2024, 8). Our creativity allows us to produce brand-new content or ideas, mainly by using an initial perspective on reality. Both capabilities depend on the presence of an individual subjectivity for their complete realization.
[41] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Declaration Dignitatis Humanae (7 December 1965), par. 3: AAS 58 (1966 ), 931.
[42] Cf. Francis, Encyclical Letter Fratelli Tutti (3 October 2020), par. 184: AAS 112 (2020 ), 1034: "Charity, when accompanied by a dedication to the fact, is much more than personal feeling [...] Certainly, its close relation to truth cultivates its universality and maintains it from being 'confined to a narrow field devoid of relationships.' [...] Charity's openness to truth therefore protects it from 'a fideism that deprives it of its human and universal breadth.'" The internal quotes are from Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter Caritas in Veritate (29 June 2009), pars. 2-4: AAS 101 (2009 ), 642-643.
[43] Cf. International Theological Commission, Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God (2004 ), par. 7.
[44] John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Fides et Ratio (14 September 1998), par. 13: AAS 91 (1999 ), 15. Cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Doctrinal Note on Some Aspects of Evangelization (3 December 2007), par. 4: AAS 100 (2008 ), 491-492.
[45] John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Fides et Ratio (14 September 1998), par. 13: AAS 91 (1999 ), 15.
[46] Bonaventure, In II Librum Sententiarum, d. I, p. 2, a. 2, q. 1; as estimated in Catechism of the Catholic Church, par. 293. Cf. ibid., par. 294.
[47] Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, pars. 295, 299, 302. Bonaventure compares the universe to "a book showing, representing, and explaining its Maker," the Triune God who grants presence to all things (Breviloquium 2.12.1). Cf. Alain de Lille, De Incarnatione Christi, PL 210, 579a: "Omnis mundi creatura quasi liber et pictura nobis est et speculum."
[48] Cf. Francis, Encyclical Letter Laudato Si' (24 May 2015), par. 67: AAS 107 (2015 ), 874; John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Laborem Exercens (14 September 1981), par. 6: AAS 73 (1981 ), 589-592; Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (7 December 1965), pars. 33-34: AAS 58 (1966 ), 1052-1053; International Theological Commission, Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God (2004 ), par. 57: "people occupy an unique place in deep space according to the magnificent plan: they enjoy the opportunity of sharing in the divine governance of visible production. [...] Since guy's place as ruler remains in truth an involvement in the magnificent governance of development, we mention it here as a form of stewardship."
[49] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Veritatis Splendor (6 August 1993), pars. 38-39: AAS 85 (1993 ), 1164-1165.
[50] Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (7 December 1965), pars. 33-34: AAS 58 (1966 ), 1052-1053. This idea is likewise shown in the development account, where God brings animals to Adam "to see what he would call them. And whatever [he] called every living creature, that was its name" (Gen. 2:19), an action that shows the active engagement of human intelligence in the stewardship of God's creation. Cf. John Chrysostom, Homiliae in Genesim, XIV, 17-21: PG 53, 116-117.
[51] Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, par. 301.
[52] Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, par. 302.
[53] Bonaventure, Breviloquium 2.12.1. Cf. ibid., 2.11.2.
[54] Cf. Francis, Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (24 November 2013), par. 236: AAS 105 (2023 ), 1115; Id., Address to Participants in the Meeting of University Chaplains and Pastoral Workers Promoted by the Dicastery for Culture and Education (24 November 2023): L'Osservatore Romano, 24 November 2023, 7.
[55] Cf. J.H. Newman, The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated, Discourse 5.1, Basil Montagu Pickering, London 18733, 99-100; Francis, Address to Rectors, Professors, Trainees and Staff of the Roman Pontifical Universities and Institutions (25 February 2023): AAS 115 (2023 ), 316.
[56] Francis, Address to the Members of the National Confederation of Artisans and Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises (CNA) (15 November 2024): L'Osservatore Romano, 15 November 2024, 8.
[57] Cf. Francis, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Querida Amazonia (2 February 2020), par. 41: AAS 112 (2020 ), 246; Id., Encyclical Letter Laudato Si' (24 May 2015), par. 146: AAS 107 (2015 ), 906.
[58] Francis, Encyclical Letter Laudato Si' (24 May 2015), par. 47: AAS 107 (2015 ), 864. Cf. Id., Encyclical Letter Dilexit Nos (24 October 2024), pars. 17-24: L'Osservatore Romano, 24 October 2024, 5; Id., Encyclical Letter Fratelli Tutti (3 October 2020), par. 47-50: AAS 112 (2020 ), 985-987.
[59] Francis, Encyclical Letter Dilexit Nos (24 October 2024), par. 20: L'Osservatore Romano, 24 October 2024, 5.
[60] P. Claudel, Conversation sur Jean Racine, Gallimard, Paris 1956, 32: "L'intelligence n'est rien sans la délectation." Cf. Francis, Encyclical Letter Dilexit Nos (24 October 2024), par. 13: L'Osservatore Romano, 24 October 2024, 5: "The mind and the will are put at the service of the higher excellent by noticing and savoring facts."
[61] Dante, Paradiso, Canto XXX: "luce intellettüal, piena d'amore;/ amor di vero ben, pien di letizia;/ letizia che trascende ogne dolzore" (en. tr. The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, C.E. Norton, tr., Houghton Mifflin, Boston 1920, 232).
[62] Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Declaration Dignitatis Humanae (7 December 1965), par. 3: AAS 58 (1966 ), 931:" [T] he greatest norm of human life is the magnificent law itself-eternal, objective and universal, by which God orders, directs and governs the entire world and the ways of the human community according to a strategy conceived in his knowledge and love. God has actually made it possible for guy to take part in this law of his so that, under the mild personality of magnificent providence, numerous might have the ability to reach a deeper and deeper understanding of unchangeable reality." Also cf. Id., Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (7 December 1965), par. 16: AAS 58 (1966 ), 1037.
[63] Cf. First Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution Dei Filius (24 April 1870), ch. 4, DH 3016.
[64] Francis, Encyclical Letter Laudato Si' (24 May 2015), par. 110: AAS 107 (2015 ), 892.
[65] Francis, Encyclical Letter Laudato Si' (24 May 2015), par. 110: AAS 107 (2015 ), 891. Cf. Id., Encyclical Letter Fratelli Tutti (3 October 2020), par. 204: AAS 112 (2020 ), 1042.
[66] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus (1 May 1991), par. 11: AAS 83 (1991 ), 807: "God has inscribed his own image and likeness on man (cf. Gen 1:26), conferring upon him an unparalleled self-respect [...] In effect, beyond the rights which man obtains by his own work, there exist rights which do not represent any work he performs, but which flow from his vital self-respect as an individual." Cf. Francis, Address at the G7 Session on Artificial Intelligence in Borgo Egnazia (Puglia) (14 June 2024): L'Osservatore Romano, 14 June 2024, 3-4.
[67] Cf. Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration Dignitas Infinita (8 April 2024), par. 8. Cf. ibid., par. 9; Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction Dignitas Personae (8 September 2008), par. 22.
[68] Francis, Address to the Participants in the Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Academy for Life (28 February 2020): AAS 112 (2024 ), 310.
[69] Francis, Message for the LVIII World Day of Social Communications (24 January 2024): L'Osservatore Romano, 24 January 2024, 8.
[70] In this sense, "Artificial Intelligence" is comprehended as a technical term to suggest this innovation, recalling that the expression is also utilized to designate the discipline and not only its applications.
[71] Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (7 December 1965), pars. 34-35: AAS 58 (1966 ), 1052-1053; John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus (1 May 1991), par. 51: AAS 83 (1991 ), 856-857.
[72] For example, see the support of scientific expedition in Albertus Magnus (De Mineralibus, II, 2, 1) and the gratitude for the mechanical arts in Hugh of St. Victor (Didascalicon, I, 9). These authors, among a long list of other Catholics took part in clinical research and technological expedition, highlight that "faith and science can be united in charity, offered that science is put at the service of the males and woman of our time and not misused to hurt or perhaps damage them" (Francis, Address to Participants in the 2024 Lemaître Conference of the Vatican Observatory [20 June 2024]: L'Osservatore Romano, 20 June 2024, 8). Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (7 December 1965), par. 36: AAS 58 (1966 ), 1053-1054; John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Fides et Ratio (14 September 1998), pars. 2, 106: AAS 91 (1999 ), 6-7.86 -87.
[73] Catechism of the Catholic Church, par. 378.
[74] Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (7 December 1965), par. 34: AAS 58 (1966 ), 1053.
[75] Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (7 December 1965), par. 35: AAS 58 (1966 ), 1053.
[76] Francis, Encyclical Letter Laudato Si' (24 May 2015), par. 102: AAS 107 (2015 ), 888.
[77] Cf. Francis, Encyclical Letter Laudato Si' (24 May 2015), par. 105: AAS 107 (2015 ), 889; Id., Encyclical Fratelli Tutti (3 October 2020), par. 27: AAS 112 (2020 ), 978; Benedict XVI, Encyclical Caritas in Veritate (29 June 2009), par. 23: AAS 101 (2009 ), 657-658.
[78] Cf. Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration Dignitas Infinita (8 April 2024), pars. 38-39, 47; Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction Dignitas Personae (8 September 2008), passim.
[79] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (7 December 1965), par. 35: AAS 58 (1966 ), 1053. Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, par 2293.
[80] Cf. Francis, Address at the G7 Session on Artificial Intelligence in Borgo Egnazia (Puglia) (14 June 2024): L'Osservatore Romano, 14 June 2024, 2-4.
[81] Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, par. 1749: "Freedom makes guy a moral subject. When he acts deliberately, guy is, so to speak, the daddy of his acts."
[82] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (7 December 1965), par. 16: AAS 58 (1966 ), 1037. Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, par. 1776.
[83] Catechism of the Catholic Church, par. 1777.
[84] Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, pars. 1779-1781; Francis, Address to the Participants in the "Minerva Dialogues" (27 March 2023): AAS 115 (2023 ), 463, where the Holy Father encouraged efforts "to ensure that technology remains human-centered, fairly grounded and directed toward the good."
[85] Cf. Francis, Encyclical Letter Fratelli Tutti (3 October 2020), par. 166: AAS 112 (2020 ), 1026-1027; Id., Address to the Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (23 September 2024): L'Osservatore Romano, 23 September 2024, 10. On the function of human firm in choosing a wider aim (Ziel) that then informs the specific purpose (Zweck) for which each technological application is developed, cf. F. Dessauer, Streit um pass away Technik, Herder-Bücherei, Freiburg i. Br. 1959, 70-71.
[86] Francis, Address at the G7 Session on Artificial Intelligence in Borgo Egnazia (Puglia) (14 June 2024): L'Osservatore Romano, 14 June 2024, 4: "Technology is born for a purpose and, in its influence on human society, always represents a type of order in social relations and a plan of power, therefore enabling certain people to carry out specific actions while avoiding others from performing various ones. In a more or less specific method, this constitutive power-dimension of technology always consists of the worldview of those who invented and established it."
[87] Francis, Address to the Participants in the Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Academy of Life (28 February 2020): AAS 112 (2020 ), 309.
[88] Cf. Francis, Address at the G7 Session on Artificial Intelligence in Borgo Egnazia (Puglia) (14 June 2024): L'Osservatore Romano, 14 June 2024, 3-4.
[89] Francis, Address to the Participants in the "Minerva Dialogues" (27 March 2023): AAS 115 (2023 ), 464. Cf. Id., Encyclical Letter Fratelli Tutti, pars. 212-213: AAS 112 (2020 ), 1044-1045.
[90] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Laborem Exercens (14 September 1981), par. 5: AAS 73 (1981 ), 589; Francis, Address at the G7 Session on Artificial Intelligence in Borgo Egnazia (Puglia) (14 June 2024): L'Osservatore Romano, 14 June 2024, 3-4.
[91] Cf. Francis, Address at the G7 Session on Artificial Intelligence in Borgo Egnazia (Puglia) (14 June 2024): L'Osservatore Romano, 14 June 2024, 2: "Faced with the marvels of devices, which appear to understand how to select independently, we need to be extremely clear that decision-making [...] need to constantly be left to the human person. We would condemn humankind to a future without hope if we eliminated individuals's capability to make decisions about themselves and their lives, by dooming them to depend on the choices of devices."
[92] Francis, Address at the G7 Session on Artificial Intelligence in Borgo Egnazia (Puglia) (14 June 2024): L'Osservatore Romano, 14 June 2024, 2.
[93] The term "predisposition" in this document refers to algorithmic bias (systematic and consistent errors in computer system systems that might disproportionately prejudice certain groups in unintentional ways) or discovering predisposition (which will lead to training on a biased data set) and not the "bias vector" in neural networks (which is a specification utilized to change the output of "nerve cells" to adjust more accurately to the information).
[94] Cf. Francis, Address to the Participants in the "Minerva Dialogues" (27 March 2023): AAS 115 (2023 ), 464, where the Holy Father affirmed the growth in agreement "on the need for advancement processes to appreciate such values as inclusion, openness, security, equity, privacy and dependability," and likewise invited "the efforts of global companies to manage these innovations so that they promote real development, contributing, that is, to a much better world and an integrally greater quality of life."
[95] Francis, Greetings to a Delegation of the "Max Planck Society" (23 February 2023): L'Osservatore Romano, 23 February 2023, 8.
[96] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (7 December 1965), par. 26: AAS 58 (1966 ), 1046-1047.
[97] Francis, Address to Participants at the Seminar "The Common Good in the Digital Age" (27 September 2019): AAS 111 (2019 ), 1571.
[98] Cf. Francis, Message for the LVIII World Day of Social Communications (24 January 2024): L'Osservatore Romano, 24 January 2024, 8. For further conversation of the ethical questions raised by AI from a Catholic point of view, see AI Research Group of the Centre for Digital Culture of the Dicastery for Culture and Education, Encountering Artificial Intelligence: Ethical and Anthropological Investigations (Theological Investigations of Artificial Intelligence 1), M.J. Gaudet, N. Herzfeld, P. Scherz, J.J. Wales, eds., Journal of Moral Faith, Pickwick, Eugene 2024, 147-253.
[99] On the significance of discussion in a pluralist society oriented toward a "robust and strong social principles," see Francis, Encyclical Letter Fratelli Tutti (3 October 2020), pars. 211-214: AAS 112 (2020 ), 1044-1045.
[100] Francis, users.atw.hu Message for the LVII World Day of Peace (1 January 2024), par. 2: L'Osservatore Romano, 14 December 2023, 2.
[101] Francis, Message for the LVII World Day of Peace (1 January 2024), par. 6: L'Osservatore Romano, 14 December 2023, 3. Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (7 December 1965), par. 26: AAS 58 (1966 ), 1046-1047.
[102] Cf. Francis, Encyclical Letter Laudato Si' (24 May 2015), par. 112: AAS 107 (2015 ), 892-893.
[103] Francis, Address to the Participants in the "Minerva Dialogues" (27 March 2023): AAS 115 (2023 ), 464.
[104] Cf. Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Ethics in Internet (22 February 2002), par. 10.
[105] Francis, Post-Synodal Exhortation Christus Vivit (25 March 2019), par. 89: AAS 111 (2019 ), 413-414; estimating the Final Document of the XV Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops (27 October 2018), par. 24: AAS 110 (2018 ), 1593. Cf. Benedict XVI, Address to the Participants in the International Congress on Natural Moral Law (12 February 2017): AAS 99 (2007 ), 245.
[106] Cf. Francis, Encyclical Letter Laudato Si' (24 May 2015), pars. 105-114: AAS 107 (2015 ), 889-893; Id., Apostolic Exhortation Laudate Deum (4 October 2023), pars. 20-33: AAS 115 (2023 ), 1047-1050.
[107] Francis, Encyclical Letter Laudato Si' (24 May 2015), par. 105: AAS 107 (2015 ), 889. Cf. Id., Apostolic Exhortation Laudate Deum (4 October 2023), pars. 20-21: AAS 115 (2023 ), 1047.
[108] Cf. Francis, Address to the Participants in the Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Academy for Life (28 February 2020): AAS 112 (2020 ), 308-309.
[109] Francis, Message for the LVII World Day of Peace (1 January 2024), par. 2: L'Osservatore Romano, 14 December 2023, 2.
[110] Francis, Encyclical Letter Laudato Si' (24 May 2015), par. 112: AAS 107 (2015 ), 892.
[111] Cf. Francis, Encyclical Letter Fratelli Tutti (3 October 2020), pars. 101, 103, 111, 115, 167: AAS 112 (2020 ), 1004-1005, 1007-1009, 1027.
[112] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (7 December 1965), par. 26: AAS 58 (1966 ), 1046-1047; cf. Leo XIII, Encyclical Letter Rerum Novarum (15 May 1891), par. 35: Acta Leonis XIII, 11 (1892 ), 123.
[113] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (7 December 1965), par. 12: AAS 58 (1966 ), 1034.
[114] Cf. Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (2004 ), par. 149.
[115] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Declaration Dignitatis Humanae (7 December 1965), par. 3: AAS 58 (1966 ), 931. Cf. Francis, Encyclical Letter Fratelli Tutti (3 October 2020), par. 50: AAS 112 (2020 ), 986-987.
[116] Francis, Encyclical Letter Fratelli Tutti (3 October 2020), par. 50: AAS 112 (2020 ), 986-987.
[117] Francis, Encyclical Letter Laudato Si' (24 May 2015), par. 47: AAS 107 (2015 ), 865. Cf. Id., Post-Synodal Exhortation Christus Vivit (25 March 2019), pars. 88-89: AAS 111 (2019 ), 413-414.
[118] Cf. Francis, Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (24 November 2013), par. 88: AAS 105 (2013 ), 1057.
[119] Francis, Encyclical Letter Fratelli Tutti (3 October 2020), par. 47: AAS 112 (2020 ), 985.
[120] Cf. Francis, Address at the G7 Session on Artificial Intelligence in Borgo Egnazia (Puglia) (14 June 2024): L'Osservatore Romano, 14 June 2024, 2.
[121] Cf. Francis, Encyclical Letter Fratelli Tutti (3 October 2020), par. 50: AAS 112 (2020 ), 986-987.
[122] Cf. E. Stein, Zum Problem der Einfühlung, Buchdruckerei des Waisenhauses, Halle 1917 (en. tr. On the Problem of Empathy, ICS Publications, Washington D.C. 1989).
[123] Cf. Francis, Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (24 November 2013), par. 88: AAS 105 (2013 ), 1057:" [Many individuals] desire their social relationships provided by advanced devices, by screens and systems which can be switched on and off on command. Meanwhile, the Gospel informs us constantly to risk of an in person encounter with others, with their physical existence which challenges us, with their pain and their pleas, with their pleasure which contaminates us in our close and constant interaction. True faith in the incarnate Son of God is inseparable from self-giving, from membership in the community, from service, from reconciliation with others." Also cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (7 December 1965), par. 24: AAS 58 (1966 ), 1044-1045.
[124] Cf. Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration Dignitas Infinita (8 April 2024), par. 1.
[125] Cf. Francis, Address to Participants at the Seminar "The Common Good in the Digital Age" (27 September 2019): AAS 111 (2019 ), 1570; Id, Encyclical Letter Laudato Si' (24 May 2015), pars. 18, 124-129: AAS 107 (2015 ), 854.897-899.
[126] Francis, Message for the LVII World Day of Peace (1 January 2024), par. 5: L'Osservatore Romano, 14 December 2023, 3.
[127] Francis, Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (24 November 2013), par. 209: AAS 105 (2013 ), 1107.
[128] Francis, Address at the G7 Session on Artificial Intelligence in Borgo Egnazia (Puglia) (14 June 2024): L'Osservatore Romano, 14 June 2024, 4. For Pope Francis' mentor about AI in relationship to the "technocratic paradigm," cf. Id., Encyclical Laudato Si' (24 May 2015), pars. 106-114: AAS 107 (2015 ), 889-893.
[129] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (7 December 1965), par. 26: AAS 58 (1966 ), 1046-1047.; as priced estimate in Catechism of the Catholic Church, par. 1912. Cf. John XXIII, Encyclical Letter Mater et Magistra (15 May 1961), par. 219: AAS 53 (1961 ), 453.
[130] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (7 December 1965), par 64: AAS 58 (1966 ), 1086. [131] Francis, Encyclical Letter Fratelli Tutti (3 October 2020), par. 162: AAS 112 (2020 ), 1025. Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Laborem Exercens (14 September 1981), par. 6: AAS 73 (1981 ), 591: "work is 'for male' and not guy 'for work.' Through this conclusion one appropriately pertains to recognize the pre-eminence of the subjective significance of work over the unbiased one."
[132] Francis, Encyclical Letter Laudato Si' (24 May 2015), par. 128: AAS 107 (2015 ), 898. Cf. Id., Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia (19 March 2016), par. 24: AAS 108 (2016 ), 319-320.
[133] Francis, Message for the LVII World Day of Peace (1 January 2024), par. 5: L'Osservatore Romano, 14 December 2023, 3.
[134] John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Evangelium Vitae (25 March 1995), par. 89: AAS 87 (1995 ), 502.
[135] Ibid.
[136] Francis, Encyclical Letter Fratelli Tutti (3 October 2020), par. 67: AAS 112 (2020 ), 993; as quoted in Id., Message for the XXXI World Day of the Sick (11 February 2023): L'Osservatore Romano, 10 January 2023, 8.
[137] Francis, Message for the XXXII World Day of the Sick (11 February 2024): L'Osservatore Romano, 13 January 2024, 12.
[138] Francis, Address to the Diplomatic Corps Accredited to the Holy See (11 January 2016): AAS 108 (2016 ), 120. Cf. Id., Encyclical Letter Fratelli Tutti (3 October 2020), par. 18: AAS 112 (2020 ), 975; Id., Message for the XXXII World Day of the Sick (11 February 2024): L'Osservatore Romano, 13 January 2024, 12.
[139] Cf. Francis, Address to the Participants in the "Minerva Dialogues" (27 March 2023): AAS 115 (2023 ), 465; Id., Address at the G7 Session on Artificial Intelligence in Borgo Egnazia (Puglia) (14 June 2024): L'Osservatore Romano, 14 June 2024, 2.
[140] Cf. Francis, Encyclical Letter Laudato Si' (24 May 2015), pars. 105, 107: AAS 107 (2015 ), 889-890; Id., Encyclical Letter Fratelli Tutti (3 October 2020), pars. 18-21: AAS 112 (2020 ), 975-976; Id., Address to the Participants in the "Minerva Dialogues" (27 March 2023): AAS 115 (2023 ), 465.
[141] Francis, Address to the Participants at the Meeting Sponsored by the Charity and Health Commission of the Italian Bishops' Conference (10 February 2017): AAS 109 (2017 ), 243. Cf. ibid., 242-243: "If there is a sector in which the throwaway culture appears, with its painful consequences, it is that of health care. When a sick individual is not positioned in the center or their self-respect is ruled out, this triggers mindsets that can lead even to speculation on the bad luck of others. And this is very severe! [...] The application of a business approach to the health care sector, if indiscriminate [...] might run the risk of discarding humans."
[142] Francis, Message for the LVII World Day of Peace (1 January 2024), par. 5: L'Osservatore Romano, 14 December 2023, 3.
[143] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Declaration Gravissimum Educationis (28 October 1965), par. 1: AAS 58 (1966 ), 729.
[144] Congregation for Catholic Education, Instruction on using Distance Learning in Ecclesiastical Universities and Faculties, I. Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Declaration Gravissimum Educationis (28 October 1965), par. 1: AAS 58 (1966 ), 729; Francis, Message for the LXIX World Day of Peace (1 January 2016), 6: AAS 108 (2016 ), 57-58.
[145] Francis, Address to Members of the Global Researchers Advancing Catholic Education Project (20 April 2022): AAS 114 (2022 ), 580.
[146] Cf. Paul VI, Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi (8 December 1975), par. 41: AAS 68 (1976 ), 31, estimating Id., Address to the Members of the "Consilium de Laicis" (2 October 1974): AAS 66 (1974 ), 568: "if [the modern individual] does listen to instructors, it is because they are witnesses."
[147] J.H. Newman, The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated, Discourse 6.1, London 18733, 125-126.
[148] Francis, Meeting the Trainees of the Barbarigo College of Padua in the 100th Year of its Foundation (23 March 2019): L'Osservatore Romano, 24 March 2019, 8. Cf. Id., Address to Rectors, Professors, Trainees and Staff of the Roman Pontifical Universities and Institutions (25 February 2023): AAS 115 (2023 ), 316.
[149] Francis, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Christus Vivit (25 March 2019), par. 86: AAS 111 (2019 ), 413, quoting the XV Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, Final Document (27 October 2018), par. 21: AAS 110 (2018 ), 1592.
[150] J.H. Newman, The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated, Discourse 7.6, Basil Montagu Pickering, London 18733, 167.
[151] Cf. Francis, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Christus Vivit (25 March 2019), par. 88: AAS 111 (2019 ), 413.
[152] In a 2023 policy file about making use of generative AI in education and research study, UNESCO notes: "Among the key questions [of using generative AI (GenAI) in education and research study] is whether human beings can possibly cede fundamental levels of thinking and skill-acquisition procedures to AI and rather focus on higher-order thinking abilities based upon the outputs provided by AI. Writing, for instance, is typically related to the structuring of thinking. With GenAI [...], human beings can now begin with a well-structured overview supplied by GenAI. Some professionals have identified making use of GenAI to create text in this method as 'writing without thinking'" (UNESCO, Guidance for Generative AI in Education and Research [2023], 37-38). The German-American philosopher Hannah Arendt predicted such a possibility in her 1959 book, The Human Condition, and cautioned: "If it ought to turn out to be real that understanding (in the sense of knowledge) and believed have parted business for good, then we would certainly become the helpless servants, not so much of our machines as of our knowledge" (Id., The Human Condition, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 20182, 3).
[153] Francis, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia (19 March 2016), par. 262: AAS 108 (2016 ), 417.
[154] Francis, Message for the LVII World Day of Peace (1 January 2024), par. 7: L'Osservatore Romano, 14 December 2023, 3; cf. Id., Encyclical Letter Laudato Si' (24 May 2015), par. 167: AAS 107 (2015 ), 914.
[155] John Paul II, Apostolic Constitution Ex Corde Ecclesiae (15 August 1990), 7: AAS 82 (1990 ), 1479.
[156] Francis, Apostolic Constitution Veritatis Gaudium (29 January 2018), 4c: AAS 110 (2018 ), 9-10.
[157] Francis, Address at the G7 Session on Artificial Intelligence in Borgo Egnazia (Puglia) (14 June 2024): L'Osservatore Romano, 14 June 2024, 3.
[158] For instance, it may help individuals gain access to the "variety of resources for producing higher understanding of fact" contained in the works of viewpoint (John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Fides et Ratio [14 September 1998], par. 3: AAS 91 [1999], 7). Cf. ibid., par. 4: AAS 91 (1999 ), 7-8.
[159] Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration Dignitas Infinita (8 April 2024), par. 43. Cf. ibid., pars. 61-62.
[160] Francis, Message for the LVIII World Day of Social Communications (24 January 2024): L'Osservatore Romano, 24 January 2024, 8.
[161] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (7 December 1965), par 25: AAS 58 (1966 ), 1053; cf. Francis, Encyclical Letter Fratelli Tutti (3 October 2020), passim: AAS 112 (2020 ), 969-1074.
[162] Cf. Francis., Post-Synodal Exhortation Christus Vivit (25 March 2019), par. 89: AAS 111 (2019 ), 414; John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Fides et Ratio (14 September 1998), par. 25: AAS 91 (1999 ), 25-26: "People can not be genuinely indifferent to the concern of whether what they understand is true or not. [...] It is this that Saint Augustine teaches when he composes: 'I have actually satisfied numerous who wished to trick, but none who wished to be tricked'"; estimating Augustine, Confessiones, X, 23, 33: PL 32, 794.
[163] Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration Dignitas Infinita (4 April 2024), par. 62.
[164] Benedict XVI, Message for the XLIII World Day of Social Communications (24 May 2009): L'Osservatore Romano, 24 January 2009, 8.
[165] Cf. Dicastery for Communications, Towards Full Presence: A Pastoral Reflection on Engagement with Social Media (28 May 2023), par. 41; Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Decree Inter Mirifica (4 December 1963), pars. 4, 8-12: AAS 56 (1964 ), 146, 148-149.
[166] Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration Dignitas Infinita (4 April 2024), pars. 1, 6, 16, 24.
[167] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, (7 December 1965), par. 26: AAS 58 (1966 ), 1046. Cf. Leo XIII, Encyclical Letter Rerum Novarum (15 May 1891), par. 40: Acta Leonis XIII, 11 (1892 ), 127: "no guy may with impunity violate that human self-respect which God himself treats with fantastic reverence"; as quoted in John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus (1 May 1991), par. 9: AAS 83 (1991 ), 804.
[168] Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, pars. 2477, 2489; can. 220 CIC; can. 23 CCEO; John Paul II, Address to the Third General Conference of the Latin American Episcopate (28 January 1979), III.1-2: Insegnamenti II/1 (1979 ), 202-203.
[169] Cf. Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations, Holy See Statement to the Thematic Discussion on Other Disarmament Measures and International Security (24 October 2022): "Maintaining human self-respect in the online world requires States to also appreciate the right to personal privacy, by shielding residents from invasive security and enabling them to secure their personal details from unauthorized gain access to."
[170] Francis, Encyclical Letter Fratelli Tutti (3 October 2020), par. 42: AAS 112 (2020 ), 984.
[171] Francis, Message for the LVII World Day of Peace (1 January 2024), par. 5: L'Osservatore Romano, 14 December 2023, 3.
[172] Francis, Address to the Participants in the "Minerva Dialogues" (27 March 2023): AAS 115 (2023 ), 465. [173] The 2023 Interim Report of the United Nations AI Advisory Body recognized a list of "early guarantees of AI helping to attend to climate modification" (United Nations AI Advisory Body, Interim Report: Governing AI for Humanity [December 2023], 3). The document observed that, "taken together with predictive systems that can change information into insights and insights into actions, AI-enabled tools may help establish new techniques and investments to reduce emissions, affect new personal sector investments in net zero, secure biodiversity, and build broad-based social resilience" (ibid.).
[174] "The cloud" describes a network of physical servers throughout the world that makes it possible for users to store, procedure, and handle their data remotely.
[175] Francis, Encyclical Letter Laudato Si' (24 May 2015), par. 9: AAS 107 (2015 ), 850.
[176] Francis, Encyclical Letter Laudato Si' (24 May 2015), par. 106: AAS 107 (2015 ), 890.
[177] Francis, Encyclical Letter Laudato Si' (24 May 2015), par. 60: AAS 107 (2015 ), 870.
[178] Francis, Encyclical Letter Laudato Si' (24 May 2015), pars. 3, 13: AAS 107 (2015 ), 848.852.
[179] Augustine, De Civitate Dei, XIX, 13, 1: PL 41, 640.
[180] Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (7 December 1965), pars. 77-82: AAS 58 (1966 ), 1100-1107; Francis, Encyclical Letter Fratelli Tutti (3 October 2020), pars. 256-262: AAS 112 (2020 ), 1060-1063; Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration Dignitas Infinita (4 April 2024), pars. 38-39; Catechism of the Catholic Church, pars. 2302-2317.
[181] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (7 December 1965), par. 78: AAS 58 (1966 ), 1101.
[182] Francis, Message for the LVII World Day of Peace (1 January 2024), par. 6: L'Osservatore Romano, 14 December 2023, 3.
[183] Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, pars. 2308-2310.
[184] Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (7 December 1965), pars. 80-81: AAS 58 (1966 ), 1103-1105.
[185] Francis, Message for the LVII World Day of Peace (1 January 2024), par. 6: L'Osservatore Romano, 14 December 2023, 3. Cf. Id., Address at the G7 Session on Artificial Intelligence in Borgo Egnazia (Puglia) (14 June 2024): L'Osservatore Romano, 14 June 2024, 2: "We need to make sure and safeguard a space for correct human control over the choices made by artificial intelligence programs: human self-respect itself depends on it."
[186] Francis, Address at the G7 Session on Artificial Intelligence in Borgo Egnazia (Puglia) (14 June 2024): L'Osservatore Romano, 14 June 2024, 2. Cf. Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations, Holy See Statement to Working Group II on Emerging Technologies at the UN Disarmament Commission (3 April 2024): "The development and use of lethal self-governing weapons systems (LAWS) that lack the proper human control would present essential ethical concerns, considered that LAWS can never be ethically responsible topics capable of complying with worldwide humanitarian law."
[187] Francis, Encyclical Letter Fratelli Tutti (3 October 2020), par. 258: AAS 112 (2020 ), 1061. Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (7 December 1965), par. 80: AAS 58 (1966 ), 1103-1104.
[188] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (7 December 1965), par. 80: AAS 58 (1966 ), 1103-1104.
[189] Cf. Francis, Message for the LVII World Day of Peace (1 January 2024), par. 6: L'Osservatore Romano, 14 December 2023, 3: "Nor can we ignore the possibility of advanced weapons winding up in the wrong hands, facilitating, for instance, terrorist attacks or interventions aimed at destabilizing the organizations of legitimate systems of government. In a word, the world does not need new technologies that contribute to the unfair development of commerce and the weapons trade and as a result end up promoting the folly of war."
[190] John Paul II, Act of Entrustment to Mary for the Jubilee of Bishops (8 October 2000), par. 3: Insegnamenti XXIII/2 (200 ), 565.
[191] Francis, Encyclical Letter Laudato Si' (24 May 2015), par. 79: AAS 107 (2015 ), 878.
[192] Cf. Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter Caritas in Veritate (29 June 2009), par. 51: AAS 101 (2009 ), 687.
[193] Cf. Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration Dignitas Infinita (8 April 2024), pars. 38-39.
[194] Cf. Augustine, Confessiones, I, 1, 1: PL 32, 661.
[195] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (30 December 1987), par. 28: AAS 80 (1988 ), 548:" [T] here is a better understanding today that the mere build-up of products and services [...] is not enough for the realization of human happiness. Nor, in consequence, does the availability of the many genuine advantages offered in current times by science and technology, consisting of the computer sciences, bring liberty from every kind of slavery. On the contrary, [...] unless all the considerable body of resources and potential at male's disposal is directed by an ethical understanding and by an orientation towards the true good of the mankind, it quickly turns against guy to oppress him." Cf. ibid., pars. 29, 37: AAS 80 (1988 ), 550-551.563 -564.
[196] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (7 December 1965), par. 14: AAS 58 (1966 ), 1036.
[197] Francis, Encyclical Letter Dilexit Nos (24 October 2024), par. 18: L'Osservatore Romano, 24 October 2024, 5.
[198] Francis, Encyclical Letter Dilexit Nos (24 October 2024), par. 27: L'Osservatore Romano, 24 October 2024, 6.
[199] Francis, Encyclical Letter Dilexit Nos (24 October 2024), par. 25: L'Osservatore Romano, 24 October 2024, 5-6.
[200] Francis, Encyclical Letter Laudato Si' (24 May 2015), par. 105: AAS 107 (2015 ), 889. Cf. R. Guardini, Das Ende der Neuzeit, Würzburg 19659, 87 ff. (en. tr. The End of the Modern World, Wilmington 1998, 82-83).
[201] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (7 December 1965), par. 34: AAS 58 (1966 ), 1053.
[202] John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Redemptor Hominis (4 March 1979), par. 15: AAS 71 (1979 ), 287-288.
[203] N. Berdyaev, "Man and Machine," in C. Mitcham - R. Mackey, eds., Philosophy and Technology: Readings in the Philosophical Problems of Technology, New York City 19832, 212-213.
[204] N. Berdyaev, "Man and Machine," 210.
[205] G. Bernanos, "La révolution de la liberté" (1944 ), in Id., Le Chemin de la Croix-des-Âmes, Rocher 1987, 829.
[206] Cf. Francis, Consulting With the Trainees of the Barbarigo College of Padua in the 100th Year of its Foundation (23 March 2019): L'Osservatore Romano, 24 March 2019, 8. Cf. Id., Address to Rectors, Professors, Trainees and Staff of the Roman Pontifical Universities and Institutions (25 February 2023).
[207] Francis, Encyclical Letter Laudato Si' (24 May 2015), par. 112: AAS 107 (2015 ), 892-893.
[208] Cf. Bonaventure, Hex. XIX, 3; Francis, Encyclical Letter Fratelli Tutti (3 October 2020), vetlek.ru par. 50: AAS 112 (2020 ), 986: "The flood of details at our fingertips does not produce greater wisdom. Wisdom is not born of quick searches on the web nor is it a mass of unverified information. That is not the way to mature in the encounter with truth."
[209] Francis, Message for the LVIII World Day of Social Communications (24 January 2024): L'Osservatore Romano, 24 January 2024, 8.
[210] Ibid.
[211] Ibid.
[212] Francis, Apostolic Exhortation Gaudete et Exsultate (19 March 2018), par. 37: AAS 110 (2018 ), 1121.
[213] Francis, Message for the LVII World Day of Peace (1 January 2024), par. 6: L'Osservatore Romano, 14 December 2023, 3. Cf. Id., Encyclical Letter Laudato Si' (24 May 2015), par. 112: AAS 107 (2015 ), 892-893; Id., Apostolic Exhortation Gaudete et Exsultate (19 March 2018), par. 46: AAS 110 (2018 ), 1123-1124.
[214] Cf. Francis, Encyclical Letter Laudato Si' (24 May 2015), par. 112: AAS 107 (2015 ), 892-893.
[215] Cf. Francis, Address to the Participants in the Seminar "The Common Good in the Digital Age" (27 September 2019): AAS 111 (2019 ), 1570-1571.