Pope Francis told the Pontifical Academy for Life to evaluate the ethics of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and human enhancement.
The Pope asked to “ensure that scientific and technological growth is reconciled more and more with a parallel development … in responsibility, values, and conscience.”
The rapid acceleration of new technologies can produce significant consequences for human life and the environment “that are not always clear and predictable,” Pope Francis said.
“It is paradoxical, for example, referring to technologies for enhancing the biological functions of a subject, to speak of an ‘augmented’ man if one forgets that the human body refers back to the integral good of the person and therefore cannot be identified with the biological organism alone. A wrong approach in this field actually ends up not ‘augmenting’ but ‘compressing’ man,” he said.
The Pontifical Academy for Life is meeting in Rome this week for its 28th General Assembly February 20–22.
In addition to the in-person meeting, the academy is hosting a free online webinar on “Emerging Technologies and the Common Good” with speakers scheduled to discuss technological convergence in nanotechnology, biotechnology, and the cognitive sciences.
“Over these days you will reflect on the relationship between the person, emerging technologies, and the common good: It is a delicate frontier, at which progress, ethics, and society meet, and where faith, in its perennial relevance, can make a valuable contribution,” Pope Francis said.
“In this sense, the Church never ceases to encourage the progress of science and technology at the service of the dignity of the person and integral human development.”
In his speech to the academy, Pope Francis also warned that “technology cannot replace human contact.” He said that it is a “bad temptation” to make “the virtual prevail over the real.”
“It is evident that the technological form of human experience is becoming more pervasive every day: in the distinctions between ‘natural’ and ‘artificial,’ ‘biological’ and ‘technological,’ the criteria with which to discern what is human and of technology become increasingly difficult. Therefore, a serious reflection on the very value of man is important,” said the Holy Father.