Friday, June 14, 2024 -Pope Francis has made history by becoming the first pontiff to take part in a G7 summit.
He was welcomed by Italian Premier Giorgia
Meloni after arriving by helicopter at the Puglia resort of Borgo Egnazia on
Friday, June 14 for the
summit.
Francis replied "Still alive" when Meloni asked him how he was.
"Still alive, me too" replied the prime minister, to which the
Argentine pontiff replied, "That makes two of us".
“Happy to meet you again,” said Francis as
he got off the helicopter, to which Meloni replied: “It's a great, great
pleasure to have you here.
Your presence is a great gift."
Francis is addressing a session on AI at the summit, and having 10 bilateral
meetings with world leaders.
At the summit, the 87-year-old pontiff took
part in a discussion of issues surrounding artificial intelligence, energy, and
the Africa-Mediterranean region.
Francis said politicians must take the lead
in making sure AI remains human-centric so that decisions about when to use
weapons or even less-lethal tools always remain made by humans and not
machines.
“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 said. “We need to ensure and safeguard a space for proper human
control over the choices made by artificial intelligence programs: Human
dignity itself depends on it.”
The pope called for an international treaty
to ensure AI is developed and used ethically. He argues that a technology
lacking human values of compassion, mercy, morality, and forgiveness is too
perilous to develop unchecked.
“No machine should ever choose to take the life of a human being,” he said.
He concluded: “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.”
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