Pope Leo XIV is right about the need to make AI accountable to the human good – artificial intelligence must be subject to human moral responsibility.
But whose?
The Pope warns against the concentration of power in private hands:
A few companies, led by a handful of executives and board members, control the development of AI.
The difficult question that “Magnifica humanitas” tries to answer is how to make AI accountable to government authorities and the common good, not just the interests of its creators.
This is where Leo gets into trouble – his view of politics is one-sided and out of the decade.
The encyclical is written in the language of 20th century freedom, with the United Nations and international organizations playing a major role.
“International organizations, especially the United Nations, are important tools in promoting a civilization of love,” he wrote, in the context of “negotiating shared rules regarding the use of digital technologies, to protect citizens and the most vulnerable from ‘invisible’ yet real forms of violence.”
Leo compares AI to the Tower of Babel, yet that image applies at least to the UN.
Citing the teachings of Saint John Paul II and Pius XII, Leo affirms, “the Church values democracy as it ensures the effective participation of citizens, enables them to choose and replace their leaders peacefully and prevents power from being held by small elite groups motivated by certain interests or ideologies.”
By that measure, how democratic are most international organizations?
Higher authority
“In a world where data, computing resources and the influence of control remain in the hands of the few, talking about the common good means revealing this new kind of epistemic, economic and political asymmetry and creating new AI monopolies,” wrote Leo.
Hear!
Pope is right about the need for transparency – if we want an ethical AI, we need to know whose ethics are being written into the system.
Ordinary people should know who in the big tech companies is responsible for teaching these machines and putting the rules on them, and what those rules are.
And the public should have reasonable skepticism about the supposedly objective results produced by AI questions – the results are consistent with the chosen criteria and expectations.
Machines may generate their own responses; they do not make their own moral judgments:
“The so-called artificial intelligence does not experience, it does not have a body, it does not feel pleasure or pain, it does not mature in relationships and it does not know inside what it means to love, work, friendship or responsibility,” the pope wrote.
And they don’t have a moral conscience, because they don’t judge good and bad, they don’t understand the meaning of situations, or bear responsibilities.”
These things should all be given to people, and as the pope said, we should not trust technology companies to come up with the right measures alone.
Technology is so powerful, its use should be discussed by an informed public, and Big Tech should be accountable to higher authorities.
Yet Leo tends to downplay the role of elected national governments in this, favoring “new collaborative efforts” between “political leaders, labor organizations, the business world and the scientific community.”
That is in line with his confidence in the United Nations, and his thinking about “how legal and regulatory decisions affect the dignity of work, shared prosperity, reduction of inequality and environmental protection” in the context of AI.
One smorgasbord after another – a welter of competing interests and agendas that cannot be focused on in time while the AI runs ahead.
As fast as technology
Leo appreciates the speed at which technology is moving, but not the need for equal “deployment” on the part of the political response.
The policy maker must be able to act quickly to keep up with AI and must have a single will and voice – in short, what is needed is a powerful executive backed by the popular mandate of national elections.
The age of AI has far-reaching consequences for government institutions, and makes the presidency more important than ever.
It’s not the United Nations or an amorphous assortment of interest groups that Leo needs to appeal to, it’s President Trump.
“Magnifica humanitas” does not.
The Pope would not, and should not, reduce the Catholic Social Teaching to suit Trump: in the economy, the war and many other things, there is a big difference.
Yet Leo’s book goes beyond the necessary points of disagreement to embrace a liberal and globalist agenda – even including global warming on his ideological checklist.
If general AI legislation is to succeed, it needs not only Trump’s support, but also the support of his voters.
Leo needs to learn to speak their language, if he wants to stop the AI running away from our lives.
