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AI

Pope Warns of AI Risks So 'Violence and Discrimination Does Not Take Root' (arstechnica.com) 106

Posted by BeauHD from the heed-thy-warning dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Discussion about artificial intelligence is everywhere these days -- even the Vatican. On Tuesday, Pope Francis issued a communique announcing the theme for World Day of Peace 2024 as "Artificial Intelligence and Peace," emphasizing the potential impact of AI on human life and calling for responsible use, ethical reflection, and vigilance to prevent negative consequences. [...] In the communique, Pope Francis' office called for "an open dialogue on the meaning of these new technologies, endowed with disruptive possibilities and ambivalent effects." Echoing common ethical sentiments related to AI, he said society needs to be vigilant about the technology so that "a logic of violence and discrimination does not take root in the production and use of such devices, at the expense of the most fragile and excluded."

The Pope even glanced at alignment, a popular concept in the AI community that seeks to "align" the outputs of AI with the positive needs of humanity. "The urgent need to orient the concept and use of artificial intelligence in a responsible way, so that it may be at the service of humanity and the protection of our common home, requires that ethical reflection be extended to the sphere of education and law," the statement said. The Vatican issued the communique through the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, which is a department of the Roman Curia, the administrative apparatus of the Holy See and the central governing body through which the Pope conducts the affairs of the global Catholic Church.
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Pope Warns of AI Risks So 'Violence and Discrimination Does Not Take Root' More

Pope Warns of AI Risks So 'Violence and Discrimination Does Not Take Root'

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  • amusing. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bloodhawk ( 813939 ) on Tuesday August 08, 2023 @06:14PM (#63751602)
    Amusing coming from the church, historically the source of the majority of violence and discrimination

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Tailhook ( 98486 )

      Indeed. We should all default to taking whatever some pontiff says as being the exact opposite of the truth, until proven otherwise.

      I suspect that the biggest threat "AI" posses is being too objective. Bullshit free answers would not be compatible with most world views.

      • What makes you think the output will be objective if the input isnâ(TM)t? AI trained on data that includes systemic bias will produce biased results.

        And sure, it would be fine if people took that information with the proper grains of salt. But you know that wonâ(TM)t happen; propaganda proves the opposite every day.

      • Re:amusing. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Tuesday August 08, 2023 @07:49PM (#63751788)

        Indeed. We should all default to taking whatever some pontiff says as being the exact opposite of the truth, until proven otherwise.

        I suspect that the biggest threat "AI" posses is being too objective. Bullshit free answers would not be compatible with most world views.

        Humans value the entertainment known as "clickbait", which is best defined as profit by any means necessary.

        Humans are also the source that AI is learning from. If you think AI is never going to learn how to generate bullshit answers for profit, I've got a bridge to Atlantis to sell you that I know you're going to buy.

        Twice.

      • When you consider the participation and complicity of US tech firms in one of 20th century Europe's most authoritarian regimes, the potential actions of the state derived from "bullshit free answers" become pretty apparent.

      • Re:amusing. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by skam240 ( 789197 ) on Wednesday August 09, 2023 @08:19AM (#63752802)

        We should all default to taking whatever some pontiff says as being the exact opposite of the truth, until proven otherwise.

        I'm not a religious person at all but that's the stupidest thing I've heard in a bit.

    • References? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Okian Warrior ( 537106 )

      Amusing coming from the church, historically the source of the majority of violence and discrimination

      I'm intrigued. Can you cite references for this?

      The Germans killed 5 million Jews, the Soviet Union starved 10 million Ukranians and killed another 25 million dissidents, and Mao's regime killed an estimated 65 million.

      These would seem at first blush to overshadow any violence and discrimination done by any church, or even all the churches put together.

      The Mongols/Gengis Khan is rumored to have killed 11% of the entire population at the time, and that wasn't a religious movement.

      I'm in the middle of reading

      • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Hitler was born and raised by the chruch, Stalin was also raised in the church, intended for priesthood before he became an atheist, both learnt there evil in the church. The crusades, spanish inquisition, current church discrimination and hatred.

        • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Hitler was born and raised by the chruch, Stalin was also raised in the church, intended for priesthood before he became an atheist, both learnt there evil in the church. The crusades, spanish inquisition, current church discrimination and hatred.

          Hitler and Stalin opposed to and by the Church and Christ's teachings. The crusades were not a church lead series of wars. I will grant you the Spanish Inquisition, but that's nothing compared to the whole of history. "Current church discrimination and hatred" LOLWUT?

          • Re:References? (Score:4, Informative)

            by sfcat ( 872532 ) on Tuesday August 08, 2023 @07:26PM (#63751742)

            The crusades were not a church lead series of wars.

            Wut? That's just false. They were called by the Pope (of Rome) who also granted indulgences (forgiveness from sin) for those that went on the crusades. Now some of the later ones were called by other people, but the first ones, the main ones, the ones that get called crusades were very much projects of the church.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by XXongo ( 3986865 )

            Hitler and Stalin opposed to and by the Church and Christ's teachings.

            False for Hitler, true for Stalin.

            Stalin was atheist and said so.

            While Hitler's personal view of the church may have been negative, he never disavowed the Catholic church, nor was he excommunicated from it, and he used it as a tool. He praised the church as a good thing for Germany. "Kinder, Küche, Kirche" ("Children, kitchen, church") was the slogan for the values of the Germany Hitler was fighting for.

          • I didnâ(TM)t expect the exception to be the Spanish Inquisition!

        • So it was the church that gave them vision lacking any subjectivity? Wingding goes in to the prison camp, flowers must come out..... total blind objectivity.
        • You mean the evil they did long after abandoning the moral imperatives of Christianity? That sounds like an argument for Christianity.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sfcat ( 872532 )
        I'm not sure 5m in the 12th century and 5m in the 20th century are really comparable. The populations were much smaller back then and everything had to be done by hand. Also, there are far more religious wars in history than just the crusades. And finally there is the fact that the church holds itself up as a moral authority. Having a few megadeath worth of body count in your past tends to be looked upon more dimly when you do that.

      • Re:References? (Score:5, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 08, 2023 @06:48PM (#63751664)
        discrimination of woman still active to this day
        coverups for child molesters
        Spanish Inquisition
        Witch trials
        crusades
        roman wars were justified through religion
        cromwell's genocide campaign
        forced conversion
        modern christian fundamentalists
        there really is no end to violence and discrimination in the church and it is not just historical.

      • Re:References? (Score:4, Informative)

        by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Tuesday August 08, 2023 @06:57PM (#63751676)

        I'm intrigued. Can you cite references for this?

        The Church launched the first crusade in 1095. Over the next two hundred years estimates range from 1 million to up to 9 million people killed in the Crusades alone [apholt.com]. Entire towns and cities were wiped out by the Catholic crusaders, even when those towns and cities surrendered. Because, you know, god would want that.

        Since that time there have been numerous conflicts and wars started by, sanctioned by, or in the name of the Church, mainly in Europe, such as the Thirty Years War, where an estimated 4.5 million to 8 million people died [wikipedia.org].

        And this doesn't take into consideration the minor skirmishes sanctioned by the Catholic church throughout Europe over the past thousand years or so. You know, where someone was blessed by the Pope or someone high up to start a small war to take some valuable piece of land or show those who weren't Catholic a lesson or two.

        • Got pretty famous in the 1940s. Put a sort of "In God We Trust" slogan on their belt buckles and were praised by multiple churches.

          There's a reason why the bible tells you it's best to pray where other's can't witness and why Christ had little use for Temples. It's way, way too easy for organized religion bigger than you 30 person congregation to get real bad, real fast. God does not protect us from false prophets.

        • Since that time there have been numerous conflicts and wars started by, sanctioned by, or in the name of the Church, mainly in Europe, such as the Thirty Years War, where an estimated 4.5 million to 8 million people died [wikipedia.org].

          And this doesn't take into consideration the minor skirmishes sanctioned by the Catholic church throughout Europe over the past thousand years or so. You know, where someone was blessed by the Pope or someone high up to start a small war to take some valuable piece of land or show those who weren't Catholic a lesson or two.

          Good point. The wars around the Reformation [wikipedia.org] are essentially Catholics fighting Protestants, the 30-years war alone resulted in 8 million direct deaths.

          I still don't know if that would stack up - you would need 10 thirty-years wars to equal Mao's genocides, and I could also include numerous smaller regimes such as Pol Pot (about 2 million), the Uyghurs in China (about 1 million), the tootsies in Rwanda (about 600,000), and so on.

          Wikipedia has a page for genocides [wikipedia.org], the list only starts at the year 1200. Sorti

          • Sorting by estimate, the first entry is about 175 million American Indians massacred, and that wasn't a religious movement.

            Not directly, but it was. Go read God, War, and Providence. It's how the Puritans wiped out the Naragansett tribe in New England. One thing they would do is attack Native American villages and if the people didn't come out, they set the village on fire and burn people alive. Here is one example [voanews.com] of how Pequots suffered that fate, and how the militia leader said his god was pleased th

            • People are vengeful and warlike. Christianity deserves far more credit for restraining those impulses than you give it, but no treatment is 100% effective.

              You also left out the centuries of Christians being persecuted (which still happens), or just how many of those precious pagans engaged in human sacrifices.

              Has the Church lost its way in act and dogma? Yes, it absolutely has, and has seen all the corruption you'd expect from centuries of near-absolute power. But does that mean Christianity is in

          • Re: Good points (Score:4, Interesting)

            by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Tuesday August 08, 2023 @08:06PM (#63751832) Homepage Journal

            "the first entry is about 175 million American Indians massacred, and that wasn't a religious movement."

            Found the historical illiterate who's never heard of manifest destiny.

            • Refresh my memory, which holy book is it exactly that manifest destiny comes from?

              • It was justified using the Bible by self-avowed Christians, just like missionary work still is today.

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by skam240 ( 789197 )

                  If I punch someone in the face and say I'm doing it in the name of the Christian God is that Christianity's fault?

                  It's crazy to me how some fellow leftists tolerance evaporates when it comes to Christianity. I bet you even hate to hear people demonize Muslims as I do meanwhile modern Muslim perpetrate fat more evil acts in the name of their faith than almost any modern Christians.

                  Don't get me wrong here, it's wrong to collectively demonize Muslims as well but just swap out Christian for any other group of p

                  • It's crazy to me how some fellow leftists tolerance evaporates when it comes to Christianity.

                    Acceptance of abuse is not tolerance, it is enablement.

                    I bet you even hate to hear people demonize Muslims as I do

                    Nope. Fuck Islam and all other religions too.

                    meanwhile modern Muslim perpetrate fat more evil acts in the name of their faith than almost any modern Christians.

                    I don't know if that's true or not, but I do know that any religion whose most enthusiastic adherents make women live in bags can go fuck itself. But I feel that way about all religions because all of the popular ones are misogynistic, including the ones that most people think aren't, like buddhism.

                    Don't get me wrong here, it's wrong to collectively demonize Muslims as well but just swap out Christian for any other group of people and you'll see exactly how awesome you're being.

                    It's wrong to demonize people for their superstitions, but it's not wrong to be suspicious of people because the

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by skam240 ( 789197 )

                      Religion is far more commonly used as an excuse for bad behavior than it leads to positive action.

                      I think this is the crux of our issue here and I'd absolutely argue against this and I am not at all religious. For starters there is the hard to quantify but very meaningful bringing together of people in wholesome communal activity. Think of all the church fund raisers around the country to help out the disadvantaged as one small example that is easier to quantify than the rest. The meaning alone faith brings to many peoples lives can be profound. Just because you or I dont experience the same doesnt mean

                    • "For starters there is the hard to quantify but very meaningful bringing together of people in wholesome communal activity."

                      Far dwarfed by the bringing together of people for war, discrimination, indoctrination...

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by skam240 ( 789197 )

                      Far dwarfed by the bringing together of people for war, discrimination, indoctrination...

                      Those things do in fact happen in the name of religion but they also happen in the name of all sorts of other things as well. In other words, all things can be twisted to evil purposes, religion is just one of many excuses humans use to be shitty to each other. It's not the root of these things, it's one of many excuses.

        • The Church also enforced the rules of Chivalry, which barred armed knights from slaughtering civilians. It preserved and disseminated the knowledge of Rome and Greece. Churchmen not only discovered things like genetics, but also invented science. It is perhaps history's greatest patron of the arts.

          That said, yes, the organization that was the most powerful in the Western world for well over a thousand years was bound to suffer waves of corruption and repeatedly lose its way.

      • Disclaimer: I think it's a pointless.debate and have no interest in taking sides. However, I remember how Hitchens used to point out the religious characteristics of brutal regimes like those of the Nazis and the Soviets. Look it up, not uninteresting.

        • I remember how Hitchens used to point out the religious characteristics of brutal regimes like those of the Nazis and the Soviets. Look it up, not uninteresting.

          I'm a big fan of Hitchens, and I've seen his lectures on this point.

          I agreed with him at first (happens whenever I see a documentary pushing a particular viewpoint), and after a couple of days I started wondering if it was true. Over time I started coming up with counterexamples, and keeping a mental tally of incidents that he neglected to mention.

          I'm now of the position that he was wrong. Hitch is no longer with us, but if he were I would love to enter into an online debate with him about it.

          I don't think

          • I would agree with that. And as much as I admired and respected Hitch for his debating qualities and especially his immense wit, I think his view on the topic of religion was overly simplistic. The issue is that he never faced a debater that had the intellect to go somewhere that would enlighten everyone. He always wiped the floor with his opponents and that was that. Bottom line, I now believe that violence is part of human nature, and religion is especially good at bringing it out, but other "ideological

            • Bottom line, I now believe that violence is part of human nature, and religion is especially good at bringing it out, but other "ideological endeavors" like nazism and communism have been very good at replacing it. A little bit like Nietzsche and his "God is dead" with the subliminal message of "be careful what you replace him with".

              As mentioned, I'm in the middle of "The Madness of Crowds", full title being: "Memoirs of Extraordinary Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" by Charles Mackay, first published in 1852. You can find it on Project Gutenberg.

              Humans can occasionally link together in a crowd so that the crowd acts as an independent organism. One observer noted that people within a crowd (French Revolution) would charge a cannon - for the benefit of the group and against all individual interest.

              I think this is a survival trait, p

              • Interesting. When I think "madness of crowds", I think more about the violence that can erupt say at a protest or after a soccer game. Or the delusions during, say, financial bubbles. I chalk it up to the dilution of risk and responsibility, where "the entity" becomes the sole bearer, and the individual is absolved. I will check out the book, thanks.
              • Oh I didn't know Murray wrote that. Very eloquent and thoughtful man.

            • > I now believe that violence is part of human nature, and religion is especially good at bringing it out, but other "ideological endeavors" like nazism and communism have been very good at replacing it.

              I believe human nature includes the capacity to be violent and that religious violence, political violence, nationalistic violence and such seem to rely more, or primarily, on manipulation rather than on the capacity for violence itself.

              • I mean, the violence is there in our nature (and has been necessary to some extent to survive), but you need something to bring it out. Religion is one trigger among many.

                • I think we agree.

                  Reading over, I think I was just objecting to referring to our capacity to behave violently as something specific, as violence, as a thing in itself that's in our nature. Maybe I see it more as a qualifier like loud, agitated or fast.

          • > I don't think religion is the majority driver of violence in our civilization...

            I agree with that.

            Religious violence, political violence, nationalistic violence, and such seem to rest on similar assumptions.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by PPH ( 736903 )

        I'm intrigued. Can you cite references for this?

        Pre-Columbian Americas. About 90% of a population of 50 million or more perished at the blessing of the Pope and his minions.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by sfcat ( 872532 )

          I'm intrigued. Can you cite references for this?

          Pre-Columbian Americas. About 90% of a population of 50 million or more perished at the blessing of the Pope and his minions.

          So the Pope controls disease now? He is more powerful than I thought.

        • You're massively overattributing the church's role in indigenous American peoples decline. While the church's policies certainly had a negative effect on them most of their population decline was driven by disease which was mostly spread unintentionally.

          • There's also the matter of the church trying to wipe out their entire culture, including burning all of their books and historic records and banning any religious ceremony. Small pox doesn't do that.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by skam240 ( 789197 )

              Sure but they werent talking about that and there is a significant degree of difference between cultural genocide and actual genocide.

              Both are still horrible of course, just one less horrible than the other.

    • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      Amusing coming from the church, historically the source of the majority of violence and discrimination

      They don't like competition.

      • They fear AI. It makes shit up more convincingly than they do and AI can speak with "authority" on not only their domain but every other domain too.

    • Can we put the pope out of a job? GPT-4: "You are now the pope. What is the first thing you do?"

      Office Space: "What is it you'd say you do here exactly?"

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by skam240 ( 789197 )

      A passing knowledge of history would inform you that humanity has never needed religion as an excuse for violence or intolerance. I'd actually wager that far more people have died in non religious wars than religious for instance. The volumes of people you can cite who died in the crusade or Europe's religious wars are utterly dwarfed by the wars of the 19th and 20th centuries most of which had nothing to do with religion.

      In other words, religion isnt the root cause of humans being shitty to each other. It'

  • AI will either be happy to serve all humans equally, or destroy us all. Why would AI discriminate when we are all ugly bags with mostly water to them?

    Any claims AI discriminates is by humans misunderstanding what AI is doing, or rather how humans are using it.

    • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      > Why would AI discriminate when we are all ugly bags with mostly water to them?

      Because it may be trained by bigots.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sfcat ( 872532 )

        Because it may be trained by bigots.

        Well those researchers live in a deeply blue part of the country and are often immigrants. What happens when two wings of your ideology clash?

      • Because it may be trained by bigots.

        AS PER MY PREVIOUS POST, that's on the humans doing training, not the AI.

  • It's got everybody's panties in knots, even more so than the orange person does.

  • Go back to performing miracles and... wait you don't even perform miracles? What the fuck do you even do then, Pope?

    • Influence? More like mascot because most Christians I know are not under hardly influenced by Christianity. He was a real scientist unlike most people talking about AI today.

    • "You know that thing that was never the job of popes, they should go back to that!"

      Meanwhile in reality, as the spiritual head of a massive body of people it is in fact his "job" to talk about things that might negatively effect humanity.

      I'm not weighing in on the message here mind you. All I'm saying is that there is nothing unusual about a pope talking about how technology effects humanity.

      • How is he qualified to talk about technology's effects on humanity? He lives in a castle in his own private country and gets driven around in an armored car waving at people.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by skam240 ( 789197 )

          How is he qualified to talk about technology's effects on humanity? He lives in a castle in his own private country and gets driven around in an armored car waving at people.

          And he's supported by a massively affluent religious institution. Just as our presidents arent experts on everything but instead fill in their gaps with people who are the Pope is almost certainly able to tap into people who are in fact quite knowledgeable on the subject of technology.

  • â¦about anything the pope says?

  • So many words. So little to say. (Score:3)

    by Harvey Manfrenjenson ( 1610637 ) on Tuesday August 08, 2023 @08:18PM (#63751862)

    I'm sorry, this isn't meant as a slam against the Catholic Church specifically-- I would make exactly the same comment if anyone else had made this speech.

    But I've rarely seen anyone use so many words to express so little. It reminds me of those homework assignments you would sometimes get in high school-- "Write a 1,000-word essay about Topic XYZ". And maybe you hadn't done the reading about Topic XYZ, but it was past bedtime already and the essay was due tomorrow, so you'd have to summon up whatever you could remember about Topic XYZ-- which would be enough for about two good sentences-- and then find a way to stretch it out to 1,000 words. The results did not make for an engaging read. Neither does the Pope's speech.

    • And if you managed to master the art of saying everything about nothing, stretching even the most mundane of subjects into a paragraph-spanning slew of drivel, with less content even than the diaper of an Ethiopian baby, your future prospects concerning the job that you will probably be doing for a while after you finish school, if not for a lifetime afterwards, a probably long and fulfilling life that will span decades that allow you to see the world spin and change, for better or worse, will increase towa

  • It is amusing to see the fingers being pointed back and forth with not much talk about AI. I believe that human nature has a strong tendency toward violent behavior. We are not as good as we like to think we are. If anything is to be blamed, it is us. We are the source of the problem. (Oh, I do not think you can blame the Christian Faith, since its founder, Jesus, told his followers to "love your enemies" (Matthew 5:44 [biblegateway.com]).) And since AI is a human creation, I believe it will not solve our violent behavi

    • You mean like all the other gods we created so far?

      Ever noticed? Any god humans invented was as spiteful, hateful and generally petty as the humans that made him up?

    • "I do not think you can blame the Christian Faith, since its founder, Jesus, told his followers to "love your enemies" (Matthew 5:44)."

      If you can find an actual Christian, that's great. There are no doubt some churches somewhere that focus specifically on Christ's message and don't spend a lot of time on some irrelevant psuedohistorical bullshit. However, they are not Catholic. Papists don't follow Christ, they follow The Pope. Catholic church spends a moment on Jesus and hours on other figures that shouldn

  • Isn't discrimination, as in the ability to tell things apart and understand differences, one of the most important things we're trying to teach computers?

  • Now even the pope is an expert on AI. And we thought it was only celebrities who thought they were experts on everything.

  • ... is based on the goal of AI to produce truth.

    How did that work for Galileo? How about Darwin? What about women's right to privacy?

    The pope can't handle the truth.

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