How the Vatican is shaping AI ethics
Some of the most prolific thought-leadership in artificial intelligence today is not coming from Silicon Valley. It’s coming from the Vatican.
It turns out the Vatican is no stranger to the topic of AI.
Over the last two decades, the Vatican has dedicated people, resources, and focus to leading the conversation about the ethical, spiritual, and cultural implications of AI.
In comparison to many, the Vatican has been years ahead in its exploration and consideration of this new technology:
- In 2007, years before AI became a household topic, Pope Benedict XVI (who was 80 years old at the time) discussed the technology and raised concerns.
- In 2016, Bishop Paul Tighe, one of the Vatican’s leaders on AI, attended the Web Summit in Lisbon, Portugal, to discuss AI.
- In 2017, the Vatican hosted a panel at SXSW on AI and “Compassionate Disruption”.
- In 2018, Father Paolo Benanti, Pope Francis’ AI advisor, delivered a speech on AI ethics.
- In 2020, the Vatican issued the “Rome Call for AI Ethics,” a document pioneered by Benanti that would go on to inform the G7’s international code of conduct for AI.
- In 2024, the Vatican hosted two more AI conferences, and the Pope addressed the G7 Summit on AI.
As AI has entered the zeitgeist and its tools have become ubiquitous, the Vatican continues to lead from the front, exploring this new technology's philosophical and moral dimensions. It considers the technology at the heart of an “epochal change,” according to the Pope (who is sadly in the hospital at the time of publishing). The Catholic Church's focus and thought-leadership on the topic could influence future laws and regulations.
In this week’s newsletter, we highlight the Vatican’s latest publication on AI, “ANTIQUA ET NOVA: Note on the Relationship Between Artificial Intelligence and Human Intelligence,” to explore some of the biggest questions around technology and society: How does artificial intelligence help us understand what makes us human? How should humans consider adopting new technologies?
// A Note from the Vatican
The Vatican’s Note on the Relationship Between Artificial Intelligence and Human Intelligence is a 13,000-word exploration of the Catholic Church’s latest thinking on the topic. It highlights the benefits and drawbacks of how AI will impact sectors like health, the economy, human relationships, warfare, privacy, misinformation, and education.
Here are three key takeaways from the Note:
Takeaway #1: Human intelligence is very different from artificial intelligence.
The Vatican suggests that AI’s features—based on statistical inference—give it the ability to perform tasks but not the ability to think. AI can predict outcomes and mimic some cognitive processes that appear human, but it is missing “emotions, creativity, and the aesthetic, moral, and religious sensibilities.”
The Vatican argues that AI is confined to a limited “logical-mathematical framework,” whereas human intelligence is far more encompassing. It “develops organically throughout the person’s physical and psychological growth, shaped by a myriad of lived experiences in the flesh.”
“Although advanced AI systems can ‘learn’ through processes such as machine learning, this sort of training is fundamentally different from the developmental growth of human intelligence, which is shaped by embodied experiences, including sensory input, emotional responses, social interactions, and the unique context of each moment.”
For those seeking assurance that humanity and its intelligence are set apart and unique from the “intelligence” of a machine, the Vatican’s Note might serve as reassurance. The human experience is far more multidimensional than sophisticated predictive tools that sound human.
Takeaway #2: We must apply an ethical framework to AI.
The Vatican recommends applying an ethical framework to both the development and the use of AI. This framework encompasses the intended goals of an AI system, the results, the methods, the accountable parties involved, and the regulatory bodies that enforce ethical use.
The Vatican offers a north star to guide this ethical framework: “AI always supports and promotes the supreme value of the dignity of every human being and the fullness of the human vocation.”
According to the Church, this ethical framework includes both “the ends” of AI (what it produces) and “the means” of the technology (what inputs it uses and how it's developed). The framework also centers on humans as the primary agents to create and enforce it—from the developers of AI systems to the people who use them every day.
“Between a machine and a human, only the human can be sufficiently self-aware to the point of listening and following the voice of conscience, discerning with prudence, and seeking the good that is possible in every situation.”
Takeaway #3: Advances in technology require advances in human responsibility.
One of the key themes in the Vatican’s Note is the need for humans—equipped with what they believe is true intelligence—to take greater responsibility in the age of AI. The Pope has emphasized before the need for growth in “human responsibility, values, and conscience” proportionate to the growth in AI. The faster AI develops and the more it becomes ubiquitous, the greater the responsibility we have to shape it.
This is not a moment to abdicate responsibility or consider AI a form of co-intelligence where we are equal intellectual partners. According to the Vatican, this greater responsibility we all share isn't just up to us and our human faculties. It requires tapping into the spiritual “wisdom of the heart” that is accessible to those who have spiritual practices or pursue a relationship with a god.
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What is the Vatican’s goal with its most recent note (and all of its efforts in recent years around AI)?
Steven Umbrello, the Managing Director at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, believes the Vatican’s approach to AI represents a shift in strategy.
“The Vatican’s transition from a primarily moral and philosophical commentator to an active participant in policy deliberations reflects a deliberate strategic shift,” he said. “Rather than confining its ethical concerns to theological discourse, the Holy See is leveraging its moral authority to influence regulatory frameworks at the highest levels of global governance.”
// Strengthening our "amistics"
Faith-centric communities like the Amish have pursued a different relationship to technology that interrogates how a specific technology or innovation would contribute or detract from shared values.
Many Amish communities reject modern technologies and innovations, including cars and television. One member of an Amish community told a Harvard researcher in 1998 that a TV “would destroy our visiting practices. We would stay at home with the television or radio rather than meet with other people.”
But it’s incorrect to conclude that the Amish dismiss all technologies. As Derek Thompson wrote in The Atlantic recently, many Amish communities still have refrigerators, washing machines, and solar power. The difference is that many Amish only adopt technologies that support their religious and communal values. This process of thoughtful deliberation and selection of which technologies to accept was coined as the term “Amistics” in Neal Stephenson's 2015 novel, Seveneves.
Faith-based communities don’t have a monopoly on “amistics.” Many secular leaders and organizations argue that this era of rapid technological innovation requires intentional technological design and regulation anchored in values. This was the focus of the AI Action Summit in Paris earlier this month. Project Liberty participated in conversations around the need to weave together the rapid pace of AI progress with responsible development, ethical use, and thoughtful regulation.
// The religion of tech
A contemporary tech culture of secularism and techno-rationalism has its own forms of “religious” zealotry. Greg Epstein, a Humanist Chaplain at Harvard and MIT, has written about how Silicon Valley’s obsession with AI looks a lot like religion. His exploration of the religion of AI makes an important point: Even when they're not explicit, our technologies are already infused with values.
When those technologies collide with daily use and a society eagerly willing to embrace them, they shape our culture, change our language, and even prompt us to ask questions of ourselves, like what makes our intelligence different from the predictive, statistical inferences of a large language model that can speak in complete sentences.
// Rethinking how technology can advance human dignity
As the Vatican argues in its note on AI, the growth in our tech must be matched with a growth in our moral responsibility. We need new “amistics” that the Vatican hopes will get translated into global AI regulations and policies.
Eli Pariser, the co-director of New_ Public, a Project Liberty Alliance member, went to the Vatican in January to speak on how the design and architecture of our digital spaces can advance well-being.
“Spiritual communities, for thousands of years, probably as long as humanity has been around, have been experts in getting people together and helping figure out how to build a healthy community,” he reflected after his visit. “Ultimately, we need digital spaces that recognize the full human being, and this spiritual aspect is sort of left out of the conversation. It's so obviously not met by a lot of the current social media, but it's a really important part of being human.”
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