Headline, February 26 2024/ ''' VATICAN'S A.I. *ORACLE* '''

''' VATICAN'S A.I.

 *ORACLE* '''

ROME : THE FRIAR WHO BECAME THE VATICAN'S ORACLE ON A.I. Paolo Benanti advises the Roman Catholic church on issues raised by technology.

'' Global governance is needed, otherwise the risk is social collapse.'' Professor Paolo Benanti, artificial intelligence ethicist. 

Before dawn, Paolo Benanti climbed to the bell tower of his 16th-century monastery, admired the sunrise over the ruins of the Roman forum and reflected on a world in a flux.

'' It was a wonderful meditation on what is going on inside,'' he said, stepping into the street in his friar robe. '' And outside too.''

There is a lot going on for Father Benanti, who, as both the Vatican's and the Italian government's go-to artificial intelligence ethicist, spends his days thinking about the Holy Ghost and the ghosts in the machines.

In recent weeks, the ethics professor, ordained priest and self-proclaimed geek has joined Bill Gates at a meeting with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, presided over a commission seeking to save Italian media from :

ChatGPT bylines and general A.I. oblivion and met with Vatican officials to further Pope Francis's aiming of protecting the vulnerable from the coming technological storm.

At the conference organized by the ancients knights of Malta order, he told a crowd of ambassadors that ''global governance is needed, otherwise the risk is social collapse.'' 

He also talked up the Rome Call, a Vatican, Italian government, Silicon Valley and U.N. effort he helped organize.

The author of many books [ " Homo Faber : The Techno-Human Condition''] and a fixture on international A.I. panels, Father Benanati, 50, is a professor at Gregorian, the Harvard of Rome's pontifical universities, where he teaches moral theology, ethics and a course called '' The Fall Of Babel : The Challenges of Digital, Social Networks and Artificial Intelligence.''

For a church and a country looking to harness, and survive, the coming A.I. revolution, his job is to provide advice from an ethical and spiritual perspective.

He shares his insights with Pope Francis, who in his annual World Day of Peace message on Jan.1 called for a global treaty to ensure the ethical development and use of A.I. to prevent a world devoid of human mercy, where inscrutable algorithms decide who is granted asylum, who gets a mortgage or who, on the battlefield, lives or dies.

Those concerns reflected those of Father Benanti, who does not believe in the industry's ability to self-regulate and thinks some rules of the road are required in a world where deep fakes and disinformation can erode democracy.

He is concerned that masters of the A.I. universes are developing systems that will expand chasms of inequality. He fears the transition to A.I. will be so abrupt that entire professional fields will be left doing menial jobs, or nothing, stripping people of dignity and unleashing floods of ''despair.''

This, he said, raises questions about redistributing wealth in an A.I. dominant universe.

But he also sees the potential of A.I. : For Italy, with one of the world's most aged and shrinking populations, Father Benanti is thinking hard about how A.I. can keep productivity afloat.

And all the time he applies his perspective about what it means to be alive, and to be human, when machines seem more alive and human. '' This is a spiritual question,'' he said.

His office at the Gregorian is decorated with framed prints of his own street photography - images of down-and-out Roman dragging on cigarettes, a bored couple preferring their cellphones to their baby -and pictures of him and Pope Francis shaking hands.

His religious vocation, he explained, came after a scientific one.

The Honour and Serving of the Latest Global Operational Research on A.I., Global Governance, Societies and the Future continues. The World Students Society thanks author Jason Horowitz.

With most respectful dedication to Mankind, and then Global Founder Framers of !WOW!, Leaders, and Students, Professors and Teachers of the world.

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