The monk said that Microsoft contacted Benanti for the first time in several years to present his ideas about the technology. In 2023, Smith did a podcast with Benanti in Rome, describing Monk as bringing to the AI discussion “one of the most fascinating combinations in the world” in terms of his background in engineering, ethics, and technology.
Franciscan friar Paolo Benanticredit: AP
Benanti, who was a year shy of earning an engineering degree from Rome's Sapienza University when he ditched the degree — as did his girlfriend — to join the Franciscans in his 20s, described how artificial intelligence could be a “really powerful tool” in overthrowing the Franciscan order. The cost of medicine and enabling doctors to help more people.
But he also described the ethical consequences of a technology that could have the same capabilities as humans – or perhaps more.
“It's a problem of disuse [AI] But it is a governance problem.” “This is where ethics comes in: finding the appropriate level of use within the social context.”
Much of the data that AI informs is fed from low-wage workers, many of them in developing countries steeped in histories of colonialism and exploited labor forces, Benanti noted.
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“I don't want this season to be remembered as the season in which we extract cognitive resources from the Global South,” he said. If one examines “the best AI tools we produce” in the West, one will see that AI is “trained by underpaid workers from English-speaking former colonies.”
How to manage artificial intelligence is an issue that countries around the world are trying to solve. The European Union became a leader late last year when negotiators reached an agreement paving the way for legal oversight of artificial intelligence technology.
In Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who fears that artificial intelligence will lead to job losses, will make the technology the focus of this year's G7 summit hosted by Italy. As part of these efforts, Meloni met with visiting Microsoft founder Bill Gates in Rome, a meeting which Benanti attended.
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For his part, the monk told the Associated Press that regulating artificial intelligence should not mean limiting its development.
“This means keeping them compatible with this fragile system that is democracy, which today seems to be the best system,” Benanti said.
AP
