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Pope Francis has warned the global G7 leaders that Artificial Intelligence must never be allowed to get the upper hand over humanity.
The G7 draws together the leaders of the United States, Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Canada and Japan.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, the summit host, however invited 10 other nations to join the talks, including the prime minister of India and presidents of Turkey and Kenya.
The pope said AI represented an “epochal transformation” for mankind, but stressed the need for close oversight of the ever-developing technology to preserve human life and dignity.
“No machine should ever choose to take the life of a human being,” he said, adding that people should not let superpowerful algorithms decide their destiny.
“We would condemn humanity to a future without hope if we took away people’s ability to make decisions about themselves and their lives, by dooming them to depend on the choices of machines,” he warned.
Pope Francis acknowledged the ambivalence surrounding AI, saying it could inspire excitement and broaden access to knowledge around the world.
“Yet at the same time, it could bring with it a greater injustice between advanced and developing nations or between dominant and oppressed social classes,” he said.
“It is up to everyone to make good use of (AI) but the onus is on politics to create the conditions for such good use to be possible and fruitful,” he added.
