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BARI, Italy Pope Francis is an octogenarian who says he cannot use a computer, but on a February afternoon in 2019, a top diplomat of American Big Tech entered the papal residence seeking guidance on the ethics of a gestating technology: artificial intelligence.

Microsoft President Brad Smith and the pope discussed the rapid development of the technology, Smith recounted in an interview with The Washington Post, and Francis appeared to grasp its risks. As Smith departed, the pope uttered a warning. Keep your humanity, he urged, as he held Smiths wrist.

In the five years since that meeting, AI has become unavoidable as the pope himself found out last year when viral images of him in a Balenciaga puffer jacket heralded a new era of deepfakes. And as the technology has proliferated, the Vatican has positioned itself as the conscience of companies like Microsoft and emerged as a surprisingly influential voice in the debate over AIs global governance.

In southern Italy on Friday, Francis became the first pope to address a Group of Seven forum of world leaders, delivering a moral treatise on the cognitive-industrial revolution represented by AI, as he sought to elevate the topic in the same manner he did climate change.

President Biden greeted Pope Francis on June 14 at the Group of Seven roundtable in Fasano, Italy. (Video: Reuters)

In a sweeping speech, the pope sketched out the ramifications of a technology as fascinating as it is terrifying, saying it could change the way we conceive of our identity as human beings. He decried how AI could cement the dominance of Western culture and diminish human dignity.

AI, he said, stood as a tool that could democratize knowledge, exponentially advance science and alleviate the human condition as people give arduous work to machines. But he warned that it also has the power to destroy and called for an urgent ban on lethal autonomous weapons. As a ghost of the future, he referenced the 1907 dystopian novel Lord of the World, in which technology replaces religion and faith in God.

No machine should ever choose to take the life of a human being, the pope said.

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He has previously insisted that AIs risks must be managed through a global treaty, and on Friday he endorsed the need for a set of uniting global principles to guide AIs development.

The Rome Call for AI Ethics a document that counted the Vatican, Microsoft and IBM among its original signatories in 2020 is emerging as a gold standard of best AI practices. It has informed G-7 discussions about developing a code of conduct. And on Friday, the G-7 leaders with the Vaticans support announced that they would create a badge of honor of sorts: a new label for companies that agree to safely and ethically develop AI tools and follow guidelines for the voluntary reporting and monitoring of risks. Echoing Vatican concerns, leaders additionally called for responsible military uses of AI.

The AI issue has provided an opening for the church, diminished by its handling of clerical sex abuse scandals, to reassert its moral authority. Microsoft and at least some other tech companies appear eager for the churchs seal of approval, as the industry grapples with the public-relations challenges of a technology that could automate jobs, amplify misinformation and create new cybersecurity risks.

The Vatican has earned a seat at the Big Tech table. An ancient institution with a mixed track record on science see the trial of Galileo is now dispatching representatives to major tech events.

The Rev. Paolo Benanti the Vaticans leading AI expert, a Franciscan priest and a trained engineer credited with coining the term algorethics last year secured a spot on the United Nations Advisory Body on Artificial Intelligence and has become a major player in the crafting of a national AI policy for Italy, a G-7 nation. At the Vaticans request, IBM hosted a global summit of colleges at the University of Notre Dame to bring AI ethics to the forefront of curriculums.

The Vaticans views have influenced concrete business decisions. Microsofts Smith told The Post: We developed our own technology that would allow anyone with just a few seconds of anyones voice to be able to replicate it. And we chose not to release that. The Rome principles, he added, are definitely part of what has helped us at Microsoft strive to take a broad-minded approach to the development of AI, including within our own four walls. I just think its provided a broad humanistic and intellectual frame.

The pledges emphasis on inclusion also influenced the companys decision to launch a fellowship that brings together researchers and civil society leaders largely from the Global South to evaluate the impact of the technology, said Natasha Crampton, Microsofts chief responsible AI officer. Fellows have helped the company develop multilingual evaluations of AI models and ensured that the company understands local context and cultural norms as it develops new products.

Not all companies are on board with the Rome principles. Some have forged ahead with AI-manipulated audio that researchers warn could be abused to dupe voters ahead of elections.

Not everyone has been allowed to join the Rome club, either. The Chinese company Huawei asked, said Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life. And we said no, because we dont really know what the [people in charge there] think.

In the meantime, the Vatican remains concerned about the misuse of open-source AI. The technology could produce major benefits in health care and education, Benanti said. But it can also multiply a lot of bad elements in society, and we cannot spread AI everywhere without any political decision-making, because tomorrow we could wake up with a multiplier of inequality, of bioweapons, he said.

Vatican officials have already sounded alarms over what they view as potentially unethical uses, including the facial recognition systems deployed in the 2019-2020 crackdown on protesters in Hong Kong, as well as algorithms for refugee processing such as those in Germany, where AI-fueled linguistic tests have been used to establish whether asylum seekers are lying about their place of origin.

The relationship between the Vatican and AI innovators had its genesis in a 2018 speech that Benanti delivered on AI ethics. A senior Microsoft representative in Italy had been in the audience, and the two began meeting regularly. They brought in Paglia, who was interested in broadening the remit of his academy beyond core issues such as the ethics of stem cell research.

Ahead of Smiths visit with the pope, Paglia escorted him through Michelangelos Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel, and showed him renderings by Galileo of the Earth revolving around the sun the theory that landed him under house arrest for life after a church trial.

Yet the Vaticans relationship with science hasnt always been as a Luddite. In the Middle Ages, Catholic scholars seeded Europe with what would become some of its greatest universities. And although targeted by some individual clerics, Darwins theory of evolution was never officially challenged by the Vatican.

The church officially declares that faith and reason are not in conflict.

The Bible doesnt tell us how heaven works, but how to get there, said Paglia, quoting Galileo. The archbishop has made official trips to Microsofts headquarters near Seattle and IBM offices in New York.

Through aggressive AI investments, Microsoft has become the worlds most valuable company, worth more than $3 trillion. But its continued success hinges on curbing negative perceptions of AI. Worries that the tech could displace jobs, exacerbate inequalities, supercharge surveillance and usher in new kinds of warfare are prompting governments around the world to consider stringent regulations that could blunt the companys ambitions.

The European Union is readying a landmark law that could limit more-advanced generative AI models. The Federal Trade Commission is investigating a deal that Microsoft made with the AI start-up Inflection, probing whether the tech giant deliberately set up the investment to avoid a merger review. And U.S. enforcers reached a deal that will open the company to greater scrutiny of how it wields power to dominate artificial intelligence, including its multibillion-dollar investments in ChatGPT maker OpenAI. That relationship has also exposed Microsoft to new reputational risks, as OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman frequently invites controversy.

Under Smiths leadership, Microsoft has built one of the most sophisticated global lobbying organizations to defuse its regulatory challenges and try to convince people that it is the tech titan the world can trust to build AI. Smith regularly meets with heads of state, including appearing last month alongside President Biden at a factory opening. To be an effective business, Microsoft has to find ways to work with governments and to ensure its technology can transcend them, Smith said.

The worlds oldest global organization can be a unique teacher and partner in that effort, he said, referring to the Vatican. Catholicism and other religions arent bound by national borders much like the applications Microsoft is peddling globally.

At one level, you might look at the two of us and think were odd bedfellows, Smith said. But on the other hand, its a perfect combination.

Zakrzewski reported from Washington.

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How Pope Francis became the AI ethicist for world leaders and tech titans - The Washington Post