Of all people that could talk about the matter it had to be the one that protects and encovers pedophiles, that a few centuries ago burned homosexuals and atheists alive, and they didn't stop because they realized it was wrong they only stopped because they lost political power after too many conflicts, one of the remaining institutions that keeps alive one of the biggest pilars of human stupidity which is believing in things just because, with arguments just as strongh as kids have arguments for Santa Claus and we are supposed to take them seriously? Listening to Tom Cruise as the head of Scientology would make as much sense.
I'll save you a click: the "barbarism" in the clickbait title is incorrect usages of "technological advances such as artificial intelligence where the law of the strongest prevails over the common good" (article's paraphrasing, not Pope's words).
I give the Pope credit on trying to keep up with tech. I clicked expecting to find something completely out of touch or off basis, and was pleasantly surprised.<p>The more people talking about the effects of filter bubbles and the effects of our currently internet connected lives the better. I hope this opens a wider discussion with people who have less of a tech background, and encourages them to become more aware of the effects it has.
Community (solidarity, cooperation, concern for others and knowing one's neighbors) is in steep decline in most of the US for many reasons, and especially in Silicon Valley because the vast majority of its denizens aren't settling permanently but are just in town temporarily to earn an income, so they care less about their surroundings or anyone else but themselves. Furthermore, higher income leads people to care less about others. (UC Berkeley Monopoly experiments)<p>Possible solutions:<p>- There ought to be a modern replacement for churches (the Atheist unchurches, multi-denominational churches), which were the focal points of communities for centuries.<p>- Civic involvement in local law-making and local concerns.<p>- Putting screens away to prioritize human interaction.<p>- Revive the art of small-talk.<p>- Less polarized/political interactions, seeking understanding of others' points of view (you can't persuade true believers of anything new if they're already in violent agreement).<p>- Take the lead to create new leagues for group activities: bowling, skiing/snowboarding, ultimate frisbee, etc.
My two cents:<p>> He warned of the dangers of the use of artificial intelligence “to circulate tendentious opinions and false data that could poison public debates and even manipulate the opinions of millions of people, to the point of endangering the very institutions that guarantee peaceful civil coexistence”.<p>The current relation between AI and opinion manipulation is actually more nuanced than what I think the Pope perceives. On the one hand, large companies use algorithms (some falling under AI) to shape conversations on their platform, and do so with intentions that cannot easily be called immoral. On the other hand, the primary purveyors of manipulative content that weaken civil society exploit the algorithms in ways their design did not anticipate or intend.<p>Example: FB's algorithm for surfacing content is not clearly immoral, but malicious groups SEO content that is harmful to civil society when deployed large-scale, so that the content is deployed large-scale on the platform.<p>Edit, addendum:<p>I think the Pope's understanding of the relationship between AI and manipulative content is influenced by the news cycle's reporting on matters such as GPT-2, deepfakes, Musk's wild claims about AI. My understanding is that AI being used for clearly immoral ends is not widespread in SV companies.<p>On the other hand, reporting on Xinjiang frequently describes facial recognition and other AI technologies being used to surveil, discipline, control and punish the lives of minorities there. If there is a current and successful user of AI technologies for clearly immoral ends, that would be the PRC in West China. If there should be an audience to which technological advances enables<p>> a new “form of barbarism” where the law of the strongest prevails over the common good<p>it would be to the PRC.
There's a lot of talk here that is about the Catholic Church, but I appreciate this just as a statement from a highly influential figure that is not off base. There's a ring of truth that merciless optimization applied to human perception objectives is a dangerous area