The Vatican Takes On AI

says something and everything happened. That's not the church that I know, especially because I

“belong to Franciscan and we are used to say as a joke, we more than an order we are at disorder.”

That means that you know we have a lot of different processes. A little Catholic humor for you. Yeah, yeah it's Catholic. It's for everyone. There is space also for someone like me. Hi everyone from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is on with Carous Wisher and I'm Carous Wisher. My guest today is Palo Bonante. A Franciscan Fryer Catholic priest and one of the world's leading experts on the ethics of artificial intelligence. Father Bonante

has advised the Italian government, the UN and two popes on technology and some of his insights are

reflected in populos and cyclical on AI, magnificent humanity. In that formal letter to Catholics around the world, Leo called for an artificial intelligence that serves humanity, not one that would take the place of human intelligence and creativity. Bonante has a background in engineering and teaches moral theology as a university professor. He also has a healthy skepticism of tech oligarchs as the pope does who stand to profit from AI. I'd love to talk to the pope obviously

about this topic but I've known about Bonante for a while and I know he's had a real impact on the thinking of the church which has been bubbling upward since before this pope with Pope Francis

“and the idea of what technology does to society. I think it's critical that the church and other”

leaders have a role in this and in fact it's turned out that the pope has more of an impact on Silicon Valley and they're thinking that I thought possible and I'm glad to see it. I am a lapsed Catholic but I really do respect what the pope is doing now and it almost gets me back into the church. We'll see. Our expert question today comes from computer scientists in AI ethicists, Yashua, Bengeo, so stick around.

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all work together to help your business thrive. Stop reacting and start adapting. Visit kpmg.com/us/adaptability to explore the adaptability index and pulse surveys today. Father Benanti, thanks for coming on on. Thank you for having me. Just for people don't know your Franciscan fryer, a moral theologian and you also advised Pope Leo the 14th on AI.

“I believe you advised previous Pope also correct on technology issues. Yeah, much more Pope”

Francis Popleo is now shaping the Korean way that is desired. So we are in the meantime. Right, right, exactly. So talk about why is the rise of AI a faith and religion issue and and you had been talking about this before? Well, you know there is something that happened before in the church. 150 years ago with an encyclical that the name was Reron Navarro. Pushed out by another Pope and the name was Leo 13 at that time. I think named himself for that reason. I have

pinging on the human. I am seeing that AI has done the same things. Right, explain Popleo the 13th. What what he was discussing at the time. Yeah, you know that that's the point. It's interesting

things because it's an upstream power. The problem is that steam power was producing a shift of

power in society and a leverage of things that was pushing a certain number of human beings in a really uncomfortable situation in a way in which we can define a sort of modern slavery. And today it's not a matter again of a digital or artificial intelligence. It's not this, the hot topic of the church. But once again, it's power coming back among Gaza's species in domesticated way, like is it in democracy or is coming wild? And this is a little bit the way in

“which Popleo 14 is looking at this new wave of technology in society. So why pick it now?”

You and I have talked about the internet before and the internet's been a rising power. Why does it

become critical when it comes to AI? With the invention, Chad G PT, that is probably for everyone,

the equivalent of AI is not true, but this for the pop culture is these the same things. My smartphone is 1,500, 500 times, most powerful that the computer that brings us to the moon, but it's not able to compute something like that. And so we need a new centralized form of computation that this time has the shape of data center and cloud. What is the problem? That this new centralization of the data center is in some way collecting all the part of our life

that we digitize in the last 30 years. And actually, a data center is someone else computing,

“that can simple compute and control what's going on in our life. And we are seeing a lot of”

countries that are doing this really, really effective. Try to think to China or rather know the democratic country around the world. And so who is controlling the hardware now? It's controlling also the huge part of our life. That's something really political. Right. And so therefore, the church needs to weigh in here. Now you have an end of background in engineering. If you did make a note that AI has been here before, it's just taken off in this kind of Cambrian explosion,

as word I tend to use. Obviously, everyone remembers Galileo, but the church has been very deeply involved in science in not necessarily a negative way for many, many, many, many different times, explaining the juxtaposition between faith and science. Well, you know, from a core point of view, we are talking about the institution that is 2000 years old. So it makes sense that the perspective

was not always the same. When the first Christian people arise, they have to confront with

really well-shaped it for more power that was the Roman Empire and the other country. It's interesting that Christian in a different way from other religions, don't try to found their own regulation on God. But they found a reason. Why? Because if we believe as a Christian, that there is a God that make us, everything that he made in us, it's not against is well. And so everything that is reasonable is according in some way with God well. And that produced during this 20th century of history,

a lot of different reflection. Don't forget, for example, that one of my prior 13th century, the name was Raymond Doloul, produced a book in the name was the Arts Mania, in which he started to think, well, can we say all the truth on God, with that simple permutation award and you have this double wheel of things with a lot of word that are turning on. And a couple of century later, live needs, look at that and said, well, that's his fantastic, let's move to logic. And when you are typing

something on a computer today, you're using logic that is driven by live needs that is found that the girlfriend's sister's reflection. Or you can have things like the genetic studies, mandal, it was a monk. So this idea that if the nature is a gift of God, you can investigate, you can acquire it without fear, is something that belonged at least to some tradition inside the church. And when you think about the history of the church, people don't realize there's a lot of scientists

who are very as Jesuits or Franciscans throughout history. I was taught a lot. I went to George Janice, taught by Jesuits. Many of my knowledge. Many of whom were scientists. One of the things

“that's important is that the church can weigh in on these things. And there's been pushback from”

politicians, stay in your lane, church, essentially, or Pope, stay in your lane, Pope. I think

with secularism, you know, in which they, someone start to say, well, you belong to a specific place

that is the sacristy of the church. So stay there. Don't go around. Like, you know, like a wild beast in the zoo, if I can use these images. But now let me push a little bit back on what does it mean to

“be a member of the church if you do the priest. So only the priest, you should preach the gospel”

during the Mass. And so if the gospel say, you have to look at everyone in this place, like a brother in a sister. Isn't it a political message? Isn't it something that go beyond a series of displacement of power that usually has the tendency to frame, divide and in some way shape the order in society?

So of course, that is not always clear in the history. When some pole brought to the slave,

you know, behave like a brother of your owners and to the owners, behave like a brothers, to the slave at that time, 20th century ago, was not thinkable. That slavery was something that isn't just today. If you would like to be Catholic, and you think that slavery is acceptable, you are not Catholic. So it's an ongoing process. But it's political too. Right. Right. So let's talk about the encyclical specifically. Scott and I discussed what I'm pivoted. We were very impressed

by it. In it, the Pope calls for government regulation protecting children. He warns against AI warfare. Talk about the conversations as he was writing this and the process. I'd love to understand where your role was in shaping it and where his mind was, because putting these things out is a very

“big signal by the Pope that this is an important topic. So talk about the creation of it.”

Well, you know, we can imagine church in a lot of ways. One could be a Pyramids with big boss on the top that simple as a lot of work or done, and he say something and everything happened. That's not the church that I know, especially because I belong to Franciscan. And we are used to say as a joke, we more than an order. We are a disorder that we have a lot of different processes. Well, Catholic humor for you. Yeah. Yeah. It's Catholic. It's for everyone. There is also for someone

like me. What does it mean? That means that we can imagine church like a cake with yeast. So the yeast is something that is used to produce an augmentation of the shared thinking. So it's not important to be in the Catholic church that the Pope has a clear view and understanding of an

“issue. But he's much, much more important than this belong to every faithful. And this is a process”

that need time, need reflection. So when something surface on the top level of the church, so as a Pope document, that means that there was a huge disgestion of a lot of different things. Let's be back to Leo 13. Leo 13 was a new show that made a diplomat of the church to the North and Europe. And he saw what the steam power and machine are doing to the worker and to the dress formation. Here reflect on that with a lot of people inside the church in Europe.

When he was elected Pope, he was able to connect the dot and produce this rarum novarum. That's say to the church, look, we are not in the sacristy. We are with the step in the world and with the brain in the heaven. But we have to work on this on this world with other people. And that was really interesting because the same thing is probably happening here with the Pope Leo 14. So there are a lot of people that are reflecting on that. Leipi people professoring the university, strange

frances can like myself, doing strange things like this discussion with you. And this is producing a sort of a global awareness. It starts with Pope Francis, really great. Yes, it's a T-18, then 2019, 2020. In 2020, it's not just a matter of what's happening inside the church. But it's also something that happened in everyone life with COVID pandemic and COVID push every generation on digital means. Right. So digital becomes top one of the topics. So you can go back and see that the

topic of AI is surfacing a lot of time in the discussion on autonomous weapon, in the discussion of child protection, in the discussion of ethical approach to the algorithm. Then it becomes a little bit more consistent in a note from the congregation of the doctor in the faith and education the castery because education is touched by AI and the name was Antiqua It Nova, old and new things.

And then Pope Francis passed away and Pope Leo is the first document that he simple proposed out.

call the castery. The castery of faith, the castery of integral human development and the castery of

“education was involved in producing the blueprint of the document and the Pope touched it with”

his personal style. So if you find that Santa Gosting quotation or something like that, you can see how he's finishing this collective work because the Pope take the duty to offer to the church a reflection that he said for me is what I'm understanding as a correct reflection, but it's not his own reflection, his reflection of the old church and this is stupid. The whole church had been discussing it starting with Francis and then it rises up to him. As it's been worked on and he

presumably was involved in the part where Francis was focused on. Yeah, yeah, also because he was in charge

of the new bishop. And he invited me as a cardinal to talk to the new bishop about the challenge of the new media, the digital media, and he's also scientific background. So he's not far from the topic. Now he take the duty of the office to tell to the church, look, it's not a secondary element in everyday life. It's something that the shape our personal opinion, the way in which we interact with either with other people. We are seeing something like a companion chatbot that can shape forever

what we understand of intimacy. So let's have a reflection on it. This is not the end of their reflection.

No, the beginning. The beginning of it. But he could have picked anything at all to start with.

But this to him was central was what was happening with our relationship with AI and the tech executives that he does call out in some ways negatively and sometimes positively because when he presented the letter, anthropic co-founder Chris Ola was seated right there with him on the day as anthropics currently suing the Trump administration after refused to let the Pentagon use Claude for autonomous weapons and mass surveillance. Talk about was that a pointed review to the

Trump administration's handling of AI or in general the kind of reflection that he was trying to establish was a more safety-focused human-focused. Well, we have to recognize that in this moment the leading innovation on AI happening to count that is another state and China. But we have done not forget that the majority of faithful probably belong to Africa and Latin America.

“And so, when you see a document like Magnifico Manitas, you have to see a more broader approach.”

It's not focused on Silicon Valley. It's focused on humanity. And if I have to express the percentage of preoccupation of the Pope probably will be on the effect of the most fragile in the world that will be the global south. And the idea that the big tech was present when the press release of the document was there, it's not to be understood as a picking one because he is faithful to the document, because the Pope is really clearly. It's not enough. Anetical approach

that is decided by someone in the bottom room without a big sharing with other people. And this means that maybe anthropics is the most active on AI but is not the way that the church in this looking to every human beings in the same fact that is the human beings as the right to participate to the debate. So we are simple finding a dialogue also with people that are building such kind of things. We do not pretend that they are in the same page where we are.

“I think that this is a huge expression that Pope Francis lived to the church.”

Disability to be open to the difference without fear and without the urgency to say we have to think everyone the same things now. Right. Right. So it goes up through committees and then he adds to it. Right. Is that correct? And he just keeps getting worked on. And this is something you had been interested in and many others. Did he write it himself or he works with a group as with any president or political figure they work with a lot of people in formulating it. Correct?

Well we can understand probably the best metaphorical image to understand that is like when a plant grow. You take water that comes from outside but is filtered from the roots. So there is not a scientific committee that advies him directly. But scientific and technological people was involved in a lot of satellite reflection that happened in the policy. Last September there was one really big in which people like Joshua Benjo, Hinton and other scientists,

ethics that's much more directly addressed to people like the tech guys, the people that make

“business on this or to the international organization. So all these different sources”

become something that is a nutrient for the developing of the process. But you cannot have this paragraph is connected to this, this, this, this, this, this, this, right, right, right, is a digested thing. We'll be back in a minute. Support for this show comes from Teleport. In the AI era one of the biggest questions is how to contain agent behavior in your production infrastructure. In teleports survey

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Popoleo sees work as a "fundamental dimension of the human experience and AI is threatening

“that." That's why it was called Magnificent Humanity, essentially. Last week, the tech companies are”

trying anthropic open-ass foundation and several other companies announced a $500 million effort,

which seems small, to help states and employers prepare workers to the effects of AI and jobs the economy. Talk about what you're all hoping, you know, I've considered reputation laundering. Maybe it's both that they really mean it or something, but let's talk a little bit about what the Pope hoped to have happened here, just that the dialogue begins or what impact was the church hoping to have here as a whole. Well, you know, clear political statement that Popleo made on day one

when he's explained to the word why he picked that name was that what the church has to offer to the world is the wisdom of the social doctrine of the church. Now, for people that are not like myself at theologian that work with this word every day, what does it mean? Well, first of all, we are not in a Galileo moment when the telescope was as to be blessed or to be damned. Social doctrine of the church simple take the things as it is. The machine is here,

the genius is out of the battle they will remain with us. And now the problem is how much is to match

on how this is the question and this is a different perspective, but the social doctrine of the church in this shape is a reflection that is 150 year old. So, under in 150 year, we are really

debate, we are part of the dialogue and probably the church is also able to pour to bring voices

that that voice will be excluded. Second things as to be plural. There is a really interesting

“debate happening during the 60 and 70 about unions. Should Christian look just for Christian unions?”

Well, the answer was really clear. No, because unions is something that is made to make social justice. A negotiation of the paycheck is not important that you belong to the church. It's much much important that you are looking for justice. And so also the solution that probably the church is expecting is not a confessional one, but is a plural one something that can happen in a multilateral debate. And this is also political interesting now, you know, in a moment in which multilateralism

is seen like you know, smoking the eye. Well, it's surprising things that no one should be excluded. More than one, there is another element. When you talk about regulation, it's really cultural understood. In China means, yeah, the leading party gives the rules that everyone will follow. In Europe is much more understand as an hard, low things. In other states, we have a totally different understanding. In the social doctrine of the church, regulation is also the name that you give to

standard. When we produce a car, we decide that we can drive it on the right side of the car or on the left side of the curb and having such kind of standard is something that is avoiding

accidents that help to save life. So the first step is a standardization of AI in which it's

really clear and transparent the definition of sudden decrytary and then that's bringing this technology to us. Everyone knows that the quality of data, for example, is something that produced the quality of answer. And if there is a demography that is underrepresented, probably the judgment of AI will be not so just on such kind of things. And this is a standard. Should we declare the number of people of the demographic or the quality of data that are behind such kind of

system or should they can remain secret like the recipe of Coca-Cola or pepper. Right. And so you're trying to broaden the date. Now, hopefully you'll met with representatives from tech companies, including Meta Google and Amazon. But you know, with the concerns he shared with them or what was the reason. Well, let me say that this is happening in a sort of event that we are calling audience. An audience is a wild animal in the sense that can happen in a one-to-one private room in which

you are really free to discuss about everything and nothing happened. Or it could be a public audience.

“And can you imagine when you are the CEO of a company that is at the value of one trillion?”

If you say something that can produce the lowering of value. So in that case, they are really, you know, art guard railed. And it's not easy that personal talking up or it can happen in a plural way. That is much more official, diplomatic with a lot of, you know, dancing style. And so the speech that you are talking about happen in a really different condition. So we can imagine that in one-to-one private audience, I was in a private audience between Microsoft guys and Pope Francis

that the debate was really free. Because you can say what you want and nothing suffers. In a public moment, with picture, shaking of hands, every declaration could be a nuclear weapon. And so it's much less, much less. But he's been, but Pope Francis been trying to reach out to talk to different tech people to also get their insight, presumably. Yes, it's up to way discussion. But at the same time,

there's been some that have been very critical. Billionaire, tech investor Peter Tiel, he was also

in Rome ahead of the Encyclicals release where he gave a series of talks, including one where reportedly said the anti-Christ would be, quote, "a lotite who wants to stop all science." What is he doing from your perspective? He's called people like me, anti-Christ, things like that, like that would probably do. Yes, I'm a communist.

“Yes, what do you make of what he's up to? Well, you know, I think that is like everyone has his own ideas”

and blueprint, I need the logic of blueprint. My sensibility tells me that he's not believing in democracy, he's not believing in society, and he's believing that is time for an society made by individual. But this is good, it's something of the society is remain, so you are looking to trench your own at space and no one can trespass in. But if all the global

I wake up and I would like to wash my teeth. I don't go and make any analysis on the water that

is come out from the pipe because I'm believing that the water company, other human beings, other member of my species are make what is enough to bring me the best water that they can welcome to the social contract. So in a really wild situation in which there is not more any social contract and you are an individual in a series with a series of individual, this is simple something that cannot work. And this is where the ideology has to face with reality.

And so in my perspective, the problem with Peter Tiel is this, is pushing on an idea

“that is good if you have to capture some values from a still remaining society.”

If it will produce the collapsing of society, it will be the low of the jungle.

Which I think he prefers. I think Monarchy is what he's going for. Vice President J. Devans is the highest ranking Catholic in the US government, but I'm sure you remember when he told the pope to be careful when talking about theology. He's been a little more muted on the encyclical. At the same time, he sort of asked you all not to involve yourself in this thing. Will you surprise by that? And what would you like to see from him as a fellow Catholic?

Well, you know, I don't want to be involved with the United States politics. I'm a foreign citizen, I'm a poor Franciscan. Let me talk about theology that is easier. And probably what I see

“as an Italian with the Italian politics, that what you express in public, sometimes as an”

answer that is a political answer and is not really connected to the word that you are expressing. So, my feeling as someone that belonged to a country with a really complex politics, and that probably we have to divide the content of the word by the political answer of the man that was pushing this. And so, he is free as politicians and probably as a brilliant one, if he was elected as a vice president, to use the political term that he want to make his own politics.

Well, if we have to meet in a church talking about the gospel, what the gospel could be a different topic, you know? But you feel that as opposed to what these guys are saying, that the church has every right to be weighing in on this and actually making the debate wider. Well, my, my, my, my really deep faith as a Catholic is that the God, the church cannot stop

to talk about the gospel. And if the gospel bring us on some friction is not the first time

in the history, we have with a lot of different situation in the past and we will face also this. We'll be back in a minute. We all have to drink water and staying hydrated is one of the simplest ways to feel your best.

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to explore the adaptability index and pulse surveys today. Support for the show comes from Saint Germain, Elderflower, the Corps. Nothing says summer like a sunny backyard hang. Think light colored linens everywhere and an easy conversation on your lips. Your favorite or driven one hand and the bright refreshing taste of a Saint Germain spritz in the other. Those are the details that stick with us. And the Saint Germain spritz

and elevated take on the Hugo spritz is the simplest part. Just mix sparkling water, wine,

enjoy responsibly. Now, you've said this is just the beginning of the discussion about tech. And I'm going to step back and talk about the idea of the church's moral authority. So every

“episode we get a question from an outside expert. Here's yours. I think you'll like who it is.”

My name is Yashra Benjou and the big question I would ask father Pablo Benanti is the following. International collaboration on AI safety is currently being outpaced by competitive race to develop increasingly powerful models. How does the Vatican intend to continue leveraging its unique position to unite countries around shared human-centered safeguards for AI? Which are the main stakeholders that you believe also need to be involved?

Well, Yashra is always brilliant and he put the nail in the cube. The problem is,

is it a competition and always competition? Something that is in some way good for everyone? Well, you know, competition brings a mathematical model that say winner take-alls. So if you win I lose. When we face the most important thing in the world, like for example, achieving a cure for the cancer. If you and me sit at the same table and you have an idea and I have an idea, both of us have two ideas. So the difference is at zero soon game and a non-zero some games.

So if we are looking at the best outcome for humanity, we have to play a non-zero some games. That does not mean to not be naive because there are sections like for example security, the protection of the most fragile, the in which there are two put some guardrail in action. But if the global landscape becomes at zero some games, we are not producing any kind of wealth, we are not producing any kind of good results for humanity and probably also for the tech company.

Because you know, we can imagine a gold rush model, but with a gold rush model, well, you know, I don't know if all the morning that are putting in inside this model will bring back some kind of return of investment. And so here is a matter of a win win situation, which is not just a matter of being faithful to the gospel, but also a matter to be really rational. On what does it mean to look to a real return to everyone, a return to someone, to everybody?

So what can the Vatican do to continue to leverage this? What is next from your perspective? To keep these human-centered safeguards that was talked about in the encyclical

“in place and who are the main stakeholders here? Who do you have to continue to be in dialogue with?”

Well, it's easy this kind of question because it belonged to the social doctrine of the church.

So I simple have to repeat like in a catacus, some kind of point. Well, first of all,

we so, really clearly, we have not the way, but we could be the square, you know? It's not easy to have a dialogue if I know that you have a billions and I have billions of interest on both sides. But because church is not investing, church has not money that are going on, it could be a square in which different player can to discuss, which player? Well, the social doctrine of the church state really clearly and we are talking of the late 18th century where

we are not so open like we are now today, that is not for the elected, but is for every woman and man, a good well. So everyone that is looking for the best good, best interest of humanity

“is welcome here. So the only thing is are you open to change your mind if you see”

something that sound really convincing on the topical that we are discussing. This is the entrance

gate and I think that could be workable as a long time institution that is not the first time

that is crossing a changing of time. So we are not the United Nations, we are not as of rain state that globally has nuclear power, things like that, but we know something about what does it mean to be human and that there is a lot of voices that are asking to not be simple suppress for the convenience of someone. Right. So you would be a square, an actual square. I know the tech companies think they are a public square, but they're not. It's a private square owned by them controlled by them.

This is the mistake that we make in the first decade of the centuries. Perhaps I've said that, you know, this has been my thing. I said Mark, I give this part of your speech to my student and also they know very well. Private city, it's a private city when

it's not a square. Yeah. And the funny thing here is that we use a word that has a really high

value, that is democratization. Because when you know the fighting for civil rights, produce that a black woman, sit on a chair that was a servant to white people, we was democratizing a ride that we wrote in a paper, but was not active in society. If now we say that democratizing

“something is the ability that you have to have a login and password to a social network,”

well, I feel that we are betraying what does it mean to democratize things. That's correct. Yeah. They love to use a lot of words in our true. Anyway, so you write a lot about belief on one hand, all of Catholicism is based on believing in it and all seeing all power for God in the other hand, we have AI a technology that, if you said, a quote, voice that has no face, no history, and you've asked, how do you resist the seduction of a system that sounds like it knows everything,

and quote, talk about that idea and what can the church teach us about what deserves to be believed?

I always say to people, there's nobody there. There's nothing there. You know, it's the most

performative reflection of ourselves in a way that isn't controlled by us. So talk about what you meant by that and how do you resist the seduction of such a system with church teachings? You know, I'm also a philosopher, so let me twist the two concepts together. I grow up and during my elementary school, my teacher to make me be practical with a pencil, allow me to draw mushroom, red mushroom with white dots, then some other teacher

persuades me to not it because they are toxic. So here is how we become human, not by a set of distinct, by by the transmission of the lived experience of the former generation to us.

This transmission needs that I'm sorry we believe to such kind of things.

“You have to believe that the mushroom is toxic without testing it, otherwise you have no chance”

to get by. And sometimes we believe sometimes we have not to believe, otherwise there is no such things as a progress. And so human nature that requires to believe to someone else's experience is also required to make problems on someone else's experience. Welcome to the human journey, the bring us to the moon, but bring also us to the ability to kill someone because it's different by us. And this is the, if I can express in that way, the tragedy in the sense of the

playing that we are doing as a humanity. Now AI is a new act in such tragedy, in which we shape the way that we give for granted to acquire the quality of someone else's experience. The way that we get was a really architectural way. When we enter in the library of Georgetown, you know that it's huge is fantastic and you have the scaffold with medicine and you have the scaffold with social science. If during current pandemic, I tell to you, you know, if you

make a matte wash with vinaigrette, you don't get the virus, do you don't pick this piece of information and bring to the medicine scaffold by you bring to probably fancy stories collected in a night bar from a drunk at Franciscan. Well, this way work and allow us to grow in science, allow us to criticize some kind of bias that was injected in society. Now AI is changing, there is not anymore any scaffolding, but the machine is throwing out things and we don't have

a brain helmet, a pair of lenses, an instruction that allow us to judge what is observable to be truth and what is not. And this is producing a lot of tension with that go between the innovation of science, like for example, what alpha-fold can produce in drug discovery and the spreading of things like, you know, conspiracy theories and other fancy stories. Right. And so that's the problem. These are synthetic beings who are just giving us information, not, not facts,

“information. So one of the things that's important is to understand that it's being controlled by as you”

noted, a very small group of people in this private square and hopefully warned about the risks of consolidating power in the hands of a few. Talk a little bit about it because he is a pope, too, and that's the power is consolidating the hands of the pope. How could he show being more transparent to make this point? Now the church is not, as you said, investor, church is not making money from it. It's just trying to collect souls presumably over time.

Well, Kara, you know me and you know that I don't resist when I can make a joke as a Roman of the saline. So let's start from the starting point, the power in the hands of the pope. You know, the pope is someone that also confess. I mean, oh, very well, but between saying something and that the people do what you say, there is a huge, huge difference. So you can be a voice,

and the voice can achieve the bottom of your heart, but is a voice. The second thing is really

interesting. How can we be sure that the participation is really effective? Well, first of all, because the church is not the authority that has to put the seal on it. So could be the square, but it's not the means. You cannot enforce these things in the first of the church. And so you need something else. And that means that the dialogue remain as a dialogue. You need something that is an institution. An institution, according to the role, although according to John rules,

they are found that on the rule of law and not on this idea that the participation and the transparency and the publicity of the ruling mechanism belong to everyone. So the church cannot

offer a space, but the enforcement has to be made through the rule of law. That means there has

to be also diverse. And it's parting of the rule of law that there are countries that can feel much more at easy with one way and countries that will feel much more at easy in another way. But they democratically, and according to the rule of law, produce a discussion on this topic. And now here is a clear window where we see that the way in which we do think it's much more

“important that the result of the things in itself. So one of the things that I've noticed,”

the moral authority, the church, we had come into question as a result of child sex abuse scandals, et cetera, had caused a lot of people to lose faith. It seems like this is gaining moral authority for the church again, focused in on what affects average citizens and humanity, because most people in the United States right now tend to agree with what the church is saying here, even if they're not Catholics, you know, in terms of AI. I know just as a personal thing, my son

is, I'm Catholic, but I never took my children to church. My second son is going to the mass

every week. Now, and I never brought him, which is kind of interesting, but one of the things that attracts him, he's a technologist, is the moral authority of the church on not just AI, but in terms of what it means in a bigger sense, does this give the church an ability to recover that authority, moral authority? Because it seems to with him, and that's just one case. You know, there is a danger in such question, because it's like if the church would like to have

“it, like a form of power on questions. Right, right. I think it's a secondary effect of”

forcing what does it mean to be faithful to the gospel. And the moment in the history in which we stress, such kind of a concept, is also the moment in which we lose it. And so with my feeling as a Franciscan, as someone that belonged to a saying that simple say respect everyone and don't grasp power on everyone, is if we have a really happy, because means that the gospel is a rezoning in society, the seeking for true, and the moral reflection that we are doing are shared with people, but this is not

the end of the journey. We are not doing that to achieve this. We have to serve the humanity, magnifica humanitas is saying, and if this is resonating with people, well, I'm much more scared that probably the damage that are produced by this transfer of power to few private and is already produced a deep wound inside the society. Then, if you ask me as a teologian, is it this thingable 20 years ago? I don't think, but this is interesting because, you know,

“his story can surprise us. Well, one of the things when I think about the idea of what, you know,”

the church does have a moral authority, and they do seem to have their finger on the pulse of what average people think, right, about this thing. And one of the arguments I keep having with tech people is that why are they so reasonable and you are not? And this is a church. No, it's a hierarchical church. And so it's a really interesting juxtaposition to have a church talk about democracy in the correct way, and the wealthiest people on the planet insisting on their way or no way at all. And so

when you think about where it's going, what is your best case scenario here for the impact of this and cyclical? And what is your biggest worry? Well, my best scenario is that we open up way. And so because technology is running, probably things we're running much and much and much. And in this

changing in some view of the church. Because of course, having a, for example, what does it mean to

“have the responsibility as a state on a lot of people is not so well experienced in the church?”

And this is something that we can have some kind of enrichment in the dialogue. What will happen? I don't know. I see that the most endangered animal here is not anymore the panda could be the democracy as we know. I think that is, you know, it's an ideology that is really dangerous. Fukuyama told us that transhumanism could be the most dangerous things. I think that the end of the democracy could be the most dangerous things because, you know, in a really technological way,

you can understand democracy as an algorithm that produces result. And I see a lot of these people say, well, it's not enough efficient, simple change algorithm here. But this algorithm cost a lot of blood. It was a blooded century, the century that we simple left. If we forgot it,

“I'm scary that we are betting on someone else's blood to bring back what is important for us.”

Yeah, that is your absolutely. I said to one of them many years ago when I was thinking about income inequality, a lot, like in terms of them getting that. This is when they were just a little bit rich. Now they're really rich. Like it's really, they were super rich, but not like what's happened now. And I said to the person, I've sold this story before, that you're either going to have to do something about income inequality and what's going to happen here in terms of people

being a permanent underclass or you're going to have to armor plate your Tesla. That is where we're going with this. If you don't, if you're not careful and you're all making all the decisions and you don't care and you are less and less caring about all of humanity and more and more caring about yourself and your group of people. And I swear to God, I looked at this guy and I thought,

“he wants to armor plate his Tesla. That's what he wants. That's the world he does want. And that's”

terrified, man, remember thinking. Yeah, you know, the history will judge it. What we are remembering from Middle-H, brilliant things or armorate things that remain in a museum. You know, I think that the history will judge this. That does not mean that we don't have to act because it will cost a lot of blood, especially of the most fragile people. But this is where ideology came in. If you say it's better an armor Tesla that haphabolic squaring which you can walk and

enjoy what is there, I don't know if you are thinking good on this. Yeah, I would agree.

Anyway, Father Benante, I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for talking to me. It's always a pleasure.

And I will see you in Rome. I also thank you. Absolutely. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Today's show was produced by Michelle Aloit, Catherine Milsoff, Tracy Hunt, Madeline LaPlante, Dooby, Anne Katelyn Lynch. And a shot, Kerwit, is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Special thanks to Lisa Soap, Aim and Wellen. And Julia Sharp Levine, our engineers are Fernando Aruda and Rick Kwan and our theme music is by Tracodemics. If you're already following

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