Main sections (taken from the article):
The progress of science and technology as a path to peace
The future of artificial intelligence: between promise and risk
The technology of the future: machines that “learn” by themselves
The sense of limit in the technocratic paradigm
Burning issues for ethics
Shall we turn swords into ploughshares?
Challenges for education
Challenges for the development of international law
I’m surprised how pleased I am by this. From the space of possible performative signals the vatican could give, this is a good one to see. While unavoidably performative I hope it can be of use for those who already see the vatican as a reliable moral guide—as someone who does not, I find very little in this document to disagree with. I wonder if it might be too vague to have a high impact, but in terms of getting a stance out there I imagine this might be useful in communicating with some circles.
Speaking as a Catholic, this won’t have much impact but mostly because the Catholic Church as a whole is already extremely wary about AI. It’s good that it is explicitly written at the highest level though (note that what you feel is vague is just Vatican-speak).
However there is still no understanding about how powerful new AI models will be. In particular Catholics in general are skeptical about the possibility of AGI (mainly for philosophical/theological reasons). Their concerns will side more with AI-ethic rather than AI-alignment, but they will be natural allies for any “pause” or “slow-down” movement.
How did this happen?! I guess not by rationalists directly trying to influence the pope? But I’m curious to know the process leading up to this.
The pope has advisors. Some may even be young !
The Catholic Church has a long intellectual tradition even if it’s very different from the one on lesswrong, and it has always been wary of potential misuses of new technologies. So nothing really surprising here for those who are used to Vatican-speak.