Mic Drop: AI’s unexpected Roman holiday

Summary

Click Here - Episode Summary: "Mic Drop: AI’s Unexpected Roman Holiday"

Podcast Title: Click Here
Host: Dina Temple-Raston
Episode Title: Mic Drop: AI’s Unexpected Roman Holiday
Release Date: April 11, 2025
Hosted by: Recorded Future News

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Introduction

In this episode of Click Here, host Dina Temple-Raston delves into the unexpected intersection between artificial intelligence (AI) and the Vatican's ethical considerations. Joined by anthropologist Heather Melquist Leto, the discussion explores how the Catholic Church is influencing global conversations on AI, emphasizing the need for ethical guidelines in technological advancements.

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The Vatican’s Historical Role in Technological Ethics

Dina Temple-Raston opens the conversation by highlighting the Vatican's longstanding engagement with major technological debates. Historically, the Catholic Church has taken proactive stances on issues that significantly impact humanity.

Heather Melquist Leto elaborates:

"The Vatican historically has often led conversations about technological change, especially when it poses great threats to humanity on a global scale."
[04:01]

An example cited is the Vatican's stance during the mid to late 20th century concerning nuclear weapons. The Church actively advocated against the proliferation of nuclear arms, urging global consensus to ban such destructive technology.

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The Rome Call for AI Ethics

As AI began to emerge as a transformative technology, the Vatican anticipated its profound implications. In February 2020, prior to the widespread recognition of AI tools like ChatGPT, Pope Francis initiated the Rome Call for AI Ethics.

Heather Melquist Leto explains:

"The Rome Call for AI Ethics really was very early, so well before AI was on everyone's lips. Pope Francis organized a group of leaders to come together and to sign on for a shared set of principles."
[05:08]

This initiative brought together a diverse group of stakeholders, including religious leaders, government officials, and tech giants such as Cisco, Microsoft, and IBM. The collective aim was to establish unified ethical guidelines to steer AI development responsibly.

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Six Principles for Ethical AI

The Rome Call delineated six core principles to ensure AI serves the greater good:

1. Transparency
2. Inclusion
3. Accountability
4. Impartiality
5. Reliability
6. Security and Privacy

Heather Melquist Leto notes:

"These are broadly shared concerns... AI systems need to serve and protect human beings and the environment."
[06:00]

These principles underscore the Vatican's commitment to ensuring that AI advancements do not compromise human dignity or environmental sustainability.

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Heather Melquist Leto’s Advisory Role

In 2021, Heather Melquist Leto was invited by the Vatican to further develop and apply these ethical frameworks on a global scale. Her focus extended beyond Western perspectives, considering the diverse impacts of AI across different regions, including East Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and South America.

"The Vatican and the Catholic Church think of itself as such a global organization, they really want to consider how AI will have differentiated effects on different people."
[07:11]
— Heather Melquist Leto
[07:44]

This global approach ensures that AI's benefits are equitably distributed while mitigating adverse effects on vulnerable communities.

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Environmental Considerations in AI Development

A significant concern addressed is the environmental footprint of AI technologies. The energy consumption required to power data centers and the resultant carbon emissions pose a threat to ecosystems and contribute to climate change.

Heather Melquist Leto emphasizes:

"If you use this, it's going to make sea levels rise and then our communities who live in low lying areas in Southeast Asia are going to lose their homes."
[07:46]

This perspective aligns AI development with environmental stewardship, advocating for sustainable technological practices.

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Contemporary Challenges and Global AI Arms Race

The episode discusses the rapid evolution of AI, highlighting the emergence of lesser-known players, such as a Chinese startup, in the global AI arms race. This intensifies the competition and underscores the need for ethical governance.

Morgan Sung observes:

"This is something that we've never seen before. The CEOs of some of the most powerful and wealthy technology and media companies in the world seated on the platform for the inauguration of an American president."
[08:06]

Meanwhile, in the United States, there is a contrasting approach where tech leaders are advocating for deregulation, potentially hindering ethical oversight.

"While American tech leaders court deregulation, AI is just one of these many examples."
[10:22]

Morgan Sung adds:

"AI has morphed into something bigger and faster and more contested."
[08:22]

---

Pope Francis’ Stance at the G7 Summit

During the last summer's G7 summit, Pope Francis delivered a significant address, marking the first time a Catholic leader spoke to the group. He acknowledged the remarkable potential of AI in fields like medicine and education but simultaneously issued stern warnings about its risks.

Heather Melquist Leto reflects:

"The Pope has even called for an all out ban on the use of AI in autonomous weapons because of its potential sweeping devastation to humanity."
[10:48]

Regarding generative AI, the Pope expressed deeper concerns beyond technical aspects, focusing on the ethical implications of human connections and moral authority.

"Whoever owns and constructs these LLMs have the power to decide what you see... what is morally correct."
[11:03]
— Heather Melquist Leto
[11:26]

This highlights fears of AI creating echo chambers or "the ultimate filter bubble," limiting diverse perspectives and ethical discourse.

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Formal Warning and Spiritual Reflection

In January, the Vatican issued a formal warning about AI's "shadow of evil," cautioning against the belief that technology alone can resolve human issues. This was further emphasized in April when, despite being hospitalized, Pope Francis released a video prayer.

Morgan Sung narrates:

"Let us pray that the use of the new technologies will not replace human relationships and that it will respect the dignity of the person and will help us face the crises of our times."
[12:25]

This prayer serves as a profound reminder to prioritize human-centric values amidst technological advancements.

Heather Melquist Leto concludes:

"Ethics debates... make sure that AI benefits everybody and brings us closer to a more equal and more just world."
[12:38]

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Conclusion: The Vatican’s Enduring Influence

Dina Temple-Raston wraps up the episode by reflecting on the Vatican's unique position in the AI discourse. As one of the few institutions advocating for a pause to critically evaluate AI's trajectory, the Catholic Church underscores the importance of shaping a future where technology aligns with ethical and humanitarian values.

"When we ask what kind of world AI is building, we're really asking what kind of world we're willing to live in."
[13:00]

This episode underscores the necessity of balancing innovation with ethical responsibility, a conversation the Vatican continues to champion on a global stage.

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Notable Quotes:

• Heather Melquist Leto: "The Vatican historically has often led conversations about technological change, especially when it poses great threats to humanity on a global scale." [04:01]
• Heather Melquist Leto: "If you use this, it's going to make sea levels rise and then our communities who live in low lying areas in Southeast Asia are going to lose their homes." [07:46]
• Pope Francis (via Morgan Sung): "Let us pray that the use of the new technologies will not replace human relationships and that it will respect the dignity of the person and will help us face the crises of our times." [12:25]

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This comprehensive summary captures the essence of Click Here's episode "Mic Drop: AI’s Unexpected Roman Holiday," offering insights into the Vatican's proactive role in shaping ethical AI development and the broader implications for society.

Transcript

[Dina Templerest]

From Recorded Future News and prx, this is Click Here. That is the biggest cup of coffee I've ever seen.

[Heather Melquist Leto]

I know, I know. And I. I got it when I was 8 and it's just enormous. And I love it so much. It's awesome.

[Dina Templerest]

Is that a gallon or half a gallon?

[Heather Melquist Leto]

Yeah, just about.

[Dina Templerest]

From Recorded Future News, this is Click Here's Mic Drop. A longer listen to one of our favorite interviews of the week. I'm Dina Templerest, and today we're taking you somewhere a little unexpected. Rome. Not the Rome of Vespas and lattes. Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn's Roman Holiday. Why don't you take a little time for yourself? I could do some of the things I've always wanted to, but the one steeped in theology and ritual and our guide is Heather Melquist Leto.

[Heather Melquist Leto]

I'm an anthropologist who has studied religion and technology around the world.

[Dina Templerest]

Heather's academic life has been devoted to tracing the long standing but sometimes uneasy relationship between faith and innovation. And as part of this, she's been spending time talking to a group of men you wouldn't think cared about things like deep fakes or robots.

[Heather Melquist Leto]

The Vatican Historically, the Catholic Church has often led conversations about technological change, especially when it poses great threats to kind of humanity on a global scale.

[Dina Templerest]

Stay with us. Support for Click Here comes from CleanMyMac. A cluttered desktop isn't just an eyesore. It wastes mental energy, slows down your Mac, hampers focus. Since 2008, CleanMyMac has helped users optimize their devices, and the latest version focuses on comprehensive care, not just cleaning. With CleanMyMac, you'll boost both your Mac's performance and your productivity by easily identifying and removing large, unnecessary files, including cache files. CleanMyMac finds outdated files that can be safely removed, so there's no need to worry about losing important documents or photos. Decluttering isn't just about speed. It's about creating an environment that helps you work smarter, not harder. Your Mac will continue to run clutter free with the Smart Care feature, ensuring your Mac stays in top shape. With just one click, you can effortlessly clean up ram, manage processes, and even check for malware. Deep clean your Mac, scan for potential threats, and boost performance, all with one click. Experience CleanMyMac for yourself. Try it free for seven days and use promo code. Click as in Click here to save an additional 20% on your purchase. @CleanMyMac.com click here is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game well with the name your Price tool from Progressive. You can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates Price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states. I'm Dena Temple Rust and this is Clickier's mic Drop. For decades, the Vatican has weighed in on some of the biggest debates swirling around emerging technology. And Heather Melquisleto says nuclear weapons were a great example of this.

[Heather Melquist Leto]

So in the mid to late 20th centuries, they took great care and reflection about nuclear weapons and published a lot of material to kind of address the harms that nuclear weapons pose to humanity. Pope Pius, before a gathering of famous scientists and high church teachers, dignitaries, warns the world that agreement to ban the atom bomb must be reached.

[Dina Templerest]

Even the Vatican's Christmas broadcast became opportunities to decry the big red button. So when rumblings about artificial intelligence began to emerge, Pope Francis didn't wait for the rest of the world to speak.

[Heather Melquist Leto]

Up with anything this powerful and transformational. Like, there's potential for all sorts of really, really good things, but then potential for all sorts of really, really bad things. They want to just make sure that the good things happen and not the bad things.

[Dina Templerest]

In February 2020, before ChatGPT, the Pope launched something called the Rome Call for AI Ethics.

[Heather Melquist Leto]

The Rome Call for AI Ethics really was very early, so well before AI was on everyone's lips. Pope Francis organized a group of leaders to come together and to sign on for a shared set of principles. These are key principles that they thought should guide the development and implementation of AI around the world.

[Dina Templerest]

The Vatican gathered, not just religious and government leaders, but tech giants also weighed in, including some very familiar names like Cisco and Microsoft and IBM.

[Heather Melquist Leto]

So he had everyone together in early 2020 to sign on to this kind of shared set of principles so that there was some agreement of where AI should be headed in the future.

[Dina Templerest]

And what did they come up with?

[Heather Melquist Leto]

They came up with six principles for AI ethics. They all add up to essentially the idea that AI systems need to serve and protect human beings and the environment. Those are transparency, inclusion, accountability, impartiality, reliability, and security and privacy. I don't think that these can be seen as being unique to the Vatican or the Catholic Church at all. These are kind of broadly shared concerns.

[Dina Templerest]

Concerns that went way beyond just AI's impact on humans.

[Heather Melquist Leto]

How much water does that cost to cool the data centers? And am I exacerbating, like, climate change in a way that's going to, like, you know, destroy God's creation?

[Dina Templerest]

Once the group established those baseline principles, the Vatican continued to look at how they would be applied. This is when Heather got involved in 2021. The Vatican invited her to advise them on the ethics and impact of AI globally. So her focus wasn't just Silicon Valley, it was the rest of the world.

[Heather Melquist Leto]

So not just in North America or in Europe, places that are very well represented in these sorts of discussions. But how does AI impact people who are living in East Asia or South Asia or the Middle east or in Africa or in South America? And so because the Vatican and the Catholic Church thinks of itself as such a global organization, they really want to consider how AI will have differentiated effects on different people.

[Dina Templerest]

Take the environmental impact of AI.

[Heather Melquist Leto]

The Catholic Church is like very much thinking about, like, if you use this, uh, it's going to make sea levels rise and then our communities who live in low lying areas in Southeast Asia are going to like lose their homes.

[Dina Templerest]

But since that early rattling of conscience, headlines have only escalated.

[Morgan Sung]

There's a Chinese startup that few people.

[Heather Melquist Leto]

Had ever heard of and it has.

[Morgan Sung]

Emerged as a real player in the AI arms race. This is something that we've never seen before. The CEOs of some of the most powerful and wealthy technology and media companies in the world seated on the platform for the inauguration of an American president.

[Dina Templerest]

China, the us startups, lobbyists, political entanglements. AI has morphed into something bigger and faster and more contested. And the Pope is still speaking out, using his pulpit to resist what he calls technocracy. And that is when we come back. Stay with us. Foreign this show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Therapy should feel accessible, not like a luxury. With online therapy from BetterHelp, you get quality care at a price that makes sense and it's convenient. You can join a session with a click of a button, helping you fit therapy into your busy life. Plus, you can switch therapists at any time. With over 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 5 million people globally. Your wellbeing is worth it. Visit betterhelp.com clickhere to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp. H-E-L-P.com clickhere hi, I'm Morgan Sung, host of Close All Tabs from kqed, where every week we reveal how the online world collides with everyday life. You don't know what's true or not because you don't know if AI was involved in it.

[Morgan Sung]

So my first reaction was, haha. This is so Funny. And my next reaction was, wait a minute, I'm a journalist. Is this real?

[Dina Templerest]

And I think we will see a twitch streamer President, maybe within our lifetimes. You can find close all tabs wherever you listen to podcasts. While American tech leaders court deregulation, AI is just one of these many examples.

[Morgan Sung]

Of areas where we have sort of.

[Dina Templerest]

Gotten to a point of overregulation which is going to completely harm our ability.

[Morgan Sung]

To grow in the future.

[Dina Templerest]

Over in Italy, the Pope leans in the opposite direction. At last summer's G7, he became the first Catholic leader to address the group. And While he praised AI's potential for things like medicine and education, he also issued some stark warnings.

[Heather Melquist Leto]

The Pope has even called for an all out ban on the use of AI in autonomous weapons because of its potential sweeping devastation to humanity.

[Dina Templerest]

And when it came to generative AI, he said his concerns weren't just technical, they were bigger than that.

[Heather Melquist Leto]

Certain technologies enable human to human connections and certain technologies kind of replace human to human connection behind that LLM, you know, what kinds of sources are now being used as the authority for this. The point is, is that whoever kind of owns and constructs these LLMs, then has the power to decide what is.

[Dina Templerest]

What you see.

[Heather Melquist Leto]

Yeah, exactly. And what's theologically correct. Right. What is moral and amoral. They're, they're sort of deciding it by how they populate these, these systems. And, you know, the average user doesn't have a lot of kind of access to this information or if they do time to kind of go through it and make sure that the answers that they're getting are coming from sources that they really approve of.

[Dina Templerest]

And it could be the ultimate filter bubble. Right?

[Heather Melquist Leto]

That's right.

[Dina Templerest]

This past January, the Vatican went further, publishing a formal warning about AI's shadow of evil or the belief that technology alone can treat what ails us. This April, even after weeks in the hospital, Pope Francis released a video prayer.

[Morgan Sung]

Let us pray that the use of the new technologies will not replace human relationships and that it will respect the dignity of the person and will help us face the crises of our times.

[Dina Templerest]

It was a prayer not for healing, but for something deeper. A kind of reminder for the world to keep the humans at the center of their thoughts and to preserve what matters most, AI.

[Heather Melquist Leto]

Ethics debates, in a way that makes sure that AI benefits everybody and brings us closer to a more equal and more just world. World.

[Dina Templerest]

Because when we ask what kind of world AI is building, we're really asking what kind of world we're willing to live in. And the Vatican, however unlikely it may seem, is just one of the few institutions still insisting we pause and ask that kind of question. From Recorded Future News this has been Click Here's Mic Drop. It was written and produced by Megan Dietre, Sean Powers, Erica Guida, Zach Hirsch, Lucas Riley and me, Dina Templest. It was edited by Karen Duffin. We'll be back on Tuesday with an all new episode of Click Here. Have a great weekend.

[Morgan Sung]

If you're looking for a daily guide to cybersecurity news and policy, sign up for the Cyber Daily from Recorded Future News. It serves up the day's most interesting and important cyber stories from our sister publication the Record, and then aggregates all of the big cyber stories you might have missed from news outlets around the world. Just go to the Record Media and click on Cyber Daily to get all you need to know about the world of cybersecurity right in your inbox.