JAPAN-VATICAN Religions and Big Tech in Hiroshima for an ethics of artificial intelligence

In the city scarred by the wound of the atomic bomb, the meeting now includes Eastern religious traditions in the Rome Call for AI Ethics, convened by the Pontifical Academy for Life. To the principles developed in 2020 to safeguard the peace and dignity of every person, a specific addendum is added on the challenges posed by generative artificial intelligence.

Hiroshima () – “In Hiroshima, a place of great symbolic value, we strongly call for peace and ask that technology be the driving force of peace and reconciliation between peoples. We are here to say loudly that being together and acting together is the only possible solution.” With these words, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, today opened the two days of AI Ethics for Peace, the event through which the commitment to an ethics of artificial intelligence – promoted by the Holy See together with representatives of the Jewish and Muslim world, the FAO and some large IT companies – is being broadened, also involving representatives of the religions of the East.

The central moment of the meeting will be tomorrow, with the ceremony where the representatives of the religions present at the Rome Call for AI Ethics will sign the document that sets out a series of principles for algorithmics, that is, an ethics whose centre is the person and justice in relations between peoples in the development and application of artificial intelligence. The signing will take place significantly in the Memorial Park that commemorates the victims of the American atomic bombing of 1945, after listening to the words of a survivor of that tragedy, the result of an inhumane way of developing technology.

“Our mission as Religions for Peace Japan,” said its president, Buddhist monk Yoshiharu Tomatsu at the opening session, “is to provide support and guidance to efforts to enhance equality and mutual respect of individuals and institutions throughout society, based on our common spiritual goals. Recent advances in artificial intelligence have led to the birth of powerful new tools that can potentially assist such efforts or, if used for other purposes, significantly undermine them. Recognizing these challenges, we pledge to uphold our commitments to promote inclusion and mutual respect for all.”

“Cooperation, solidarity and common work are necessary to address developments in artificial intelligence, which mix interests, harms and benefits, to ensure that its systems and products are not only technically advanced but also morally valid,” added Mauritanian Muslim Abdallah Bin Bayyah, president of the Abu Dhabi Peace Forum and the UAE Council for Fatwa. “As people of faith, we have a unique responsibility to infuse our AI research with moral clarity and ethical integrity. We use AI not only as an instrument for progress, but also as a means to deepen our relationship with the divine and strengthen our spiritual path,” said Rabbi Eliezer Simha Weisz, member of the Commission of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel for interfaith relations.

Particularly significant was the intervention of Fr. Paolo Benanti, an Italian religious and one of the pioneers in the study of the ethical implications of these new frontiers of technology, who presented the Hiroshima Addendum on generative artificial intelligence, a new text that will become part of the Rome Call for AI Ethics (prepared in 2020), deepening this dimension that today represents the new frontier of this technological development.

The significance of this moment was also underlined by the big tech leaders present. “With its profound place in human history, Hiroshima provides an exciting backdrop to help ensure that a technology created by humanity serves all of humanity and our common home,” said Microsoft President Brad Smith, one of the first signatories of the Rome Call for AI Ethics. “AI is a technology that has implications across countries, industries, and value systems, and its benefits should impact all of humanity,” added Dario Gil, Senior Vice President and Chief Research Officer at IBM. “We see ensuring the broadest possible participation as a critical step toward a global approach to responsible AI,” said Dave West, President of Asia Pacific, Japan, and Greater China at Cisco.