Pope warns against the dangers of generative AI and deepfakes

The Pope has warned of the ‘perverse’ dangers of AI-generated images and deepfake videos in an address from the Vatican City. Pope Francis was himself a victim of AI image generation last year when an image of him wearing a white puffer jacket went viral around the world.

Pope Francis relayed his message as part of the Roman Catholic Church’s World Day of Social Communications and addressed his hopes and fears for Artificial intelligence.

The address speaks of how technological innovations are “both exciting and disorienting”. He calls upon world leaders to join together and create regulations “for the common good”.

“We need but think of the long-standing problem of disinformation in the form of fake news, which today can employ ‘deepfakes’, namely the creation and diffusion of images that appear perfectly plausible but false – I too have been an object of this,” he writes, referencing the viral image from last year.

The whole address is thoughtful and also touches on the problems associated with war reporting and photojournalism in these days of fake news and AI-generated images. He talks of ‘false narratives’ and ‘cognitive pollution’ and calls upon humans to stand together in a more united front.

It’s almost the stuff of Sci-fi movies. When the Pope gets a say in technology, you know you’ve hit a new level of dystopia. Still, he does have some unique pull, even in today’s world, and perhaps he can influence world leaders to take the lead and begin talks about regulating artificial intelligence.

The world came together before when it banned human cloning experiments, perhaps there is still hope for the (human) future.

[via reuters]