It's the Pope who says it: AI is dangerous for information and truth
Pope Francis issued a solemn warning to world leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos. According to the man of the Church, AI poses a great danger to the future of humanity in terms of information and truth.
Pope Francis warns against AI
Pope Francis is far from being the only one to hold this position: even one of the godfathers of this technology is worried about the consequences on humanity. The Supreme Pontiff, in a message sent Thursday to Davos delegates by Cardinal Peter Turkson, calls on governments and businesses to demonstrate “vigilance and reasonable diligence” facing AI.
The Pope believes that this technology raises questions about ethical responsibility, human security and its societal implications in general. The Supreme Pontiff speaks with full knowledge of the facts: he himself was the victim of deepfakes generated by AI. In particular an image which shows him hugging Madonna or another in which he wears a Balenciaga down jacket.
Pope Francis therefore warns about AI which, unlike other human inventions, generates realistic content. Technology occupies a central place in the Davos discussions as evidenced by the large presence of technology companies. Expectations are very high among some delegates as Donald Trump launched the Stargate project to the tune of $500 million.
Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, believes that the current generation of leaders is the last to manage only humans. According to him, the executives will manage both human and AI-based workers.
Major advances in health
However, AI has great promise, particularly in the field of health. Ruth Porat, investment director at Alpha, Google's parent company, highlighted the progress of the AlphaFold program. The model predicted the structure of all 200 million known proteins on the planet.
The discovery was made public and consulted by 2.5 million scientists, potentially accelerating the creation of new drugs. The discovery even earned the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for Demis Hassabis, co-founder of DeepMind which was bought by Google in 2014.
Ruth Porat, herself a survivor of two cancers, believes that the democratization of AI will be beneficial in terms of healthcare. According to her oncologist, technology could democratize them so that everyone has access to the same quality of early detection from which she benefited.
