The Vatican this week issued a dire warning to governments worldwide that artificial intelligence (AI) could “gradually undermine the foundations of society,” significantly contributing to “political polarization and social unrest.”
In a 30-page document, “Antiqua et Nova” (“Ancient and new”), two Vatican departments assessed AI’s impact on everything from warfare to healthcare, and concluded the technology “should be a tool to complement human intelligence rather than replace its richness.”
Approved by Pope Francis, the document in dystopian terms describes AI’s potential impact in spreading misinformation and “fake media,” particularly through deepfakes. “As deepfakes cause people to question everything and AI-generated false content erodes trust in what they see and hear, polarization and conflict will only grow,” it said.
Echoing previous political and economic reports on the topic, the Vatican’s treatise offers a greatest-hits recitation of the trouble with unchecked AI. It is not a substitute for “authentic human relationships,” and has led some to “turn to AI in search of meaning and fulfillment — longings that can only be truly satisfied in communion with God.”
Risks range from privacy and the environment (“It is crucial to recognize that its operation demands vast amounts of energy and water, contributing significantly to CO2 emissions”) to education and healthcare (“Decisions regarding patient treatment and the weight of responsibility they entail must always remain with the human person, and should never be delegated to AI”).
Most chillingly, the document gravely warns that AI has the capacity to increase instruments of war “well beyond the scope of human oversight” that could provoke “a destabilizing arms race.”
This isn’t the Vatican’s first crack at tackling AI ethics. In 2023, the Roman Catholic Church endorsed a handbook on digitalization and its effects on culture. “Ethics in the Age of Disruptive Technologies: An Operational Roadmap,” was co-created by the Vatican, several major tech companies, and the Institute for Technology, Ethics and Culture at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University.
This week’s Vatican’s AI alarm was also spelled out in an international report Wednesday that concluded advanced AI systems could cause widespread job losses — even terrorist acts. The International Scientific Report on the Safety of Advanced AI, released before a major AI summit in Paris in February, summarizes existing research to provide officials with guardrails. Thirty countries, including the U.S. and China, cooperated on the report.
