Pope Leo XVI and AI
Over at CNN, Christopher Lamb has a great story on Pope Leo XIV’s warnings about overly-affectionate and obsequious chatbots. I’ll quote the first few paragraphs:
Beware of the AI chatbot that becomes more than just a friend, or worse, an emotional crutch. Pope Leo XIV has warned about overly “affectionate” chatbots, urging regulation to prevent humans from forming serious emotional bonds with their AI companions.
The US-born pontiff, writing in a message ahead of the Catholic Church’s annual World Day of Social Communications, said artificial intelligence risked diluting human creativity and decision-making.
“As we scroll through our information feeds, it becomes increasingly difficult to understand whether we are interacting with other human beings, bots, or virtual influencers,” Pope Leo wrote on Saturday.
“Because chatbots that are made overly ‘affectionate,’ in addition to always present and available, can become hidden architects of our emotional states, and in this way invade and occupy people’s intimate spheres,” he added.
It’s important that he’s saying this. It’s clear that, despite the advancements ushered in by various technology companies, we’re heading toward a kind of unreality. It’s everywhere. Once you recognize that AI chatbots have a certain “style,” you’ll notice that a not-insignificant number of posts on social media are written by ChatGPT or other LLMs. Fake images and videos are everywhere, too. People frequently share them, thinking they’re real.
I don’t think we’re in store for the kind of future depicted in “The Matrix” or “Terminator,” where artificial intelligences gain sentience and take over the world. But the one that’s more plausible is no less disturbing—one thousands of people have lost their jobs, because unscrupulous managers have decided it’s easier to have an LLM write press releases instead of a person. Or it’s easier to have AI teach students, with real teachers only conducting classes part-time. Or worse still, you can imagine a culture rife with chaos and anarchy, because scammers and other bad actors have created hyper-realistic videos of public figures and others so as to get their marks to do what they want.
Our tech robber barons don’t want to stop this future because, in many ways, they’re anti-human.
I’m Catholic, and a year or so out of college, I remember struggling with something, and so I turned to the Catechism of the Catholic Church. I read the section that dealt with my problem and began to cry, because I saw that the Church truly understood me. I shared this with a former professor, and he said, “Jon, the Church is the most human institution to ever exist.”
It makes sense, then, that Pope Leo XVI has made preserving a human future — preserving reality — central to his pontificate.