The Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria on Wednesday warned that Artificial Intelligence (AI), as good as it may be, should be a tool for empowerment and progress and not for division and destruction.
While warning on the dangers of AI, the organization asked for caution and responsible use of the technology and
emphasized the need for ethical considerations in AI development and deployment.
The President of CBCN, Most Rev. Lucius Ugorji, raised the concerns during the maiden edition of the Communication Week Public Lecture in Abuja with the theme, “Artificial Intelligence and Wisdom of the Heart: For A Fully Human Communication”, attended by the clergy, consecrated men and women, lay faithful, AI and social development experts.
The cleric emphasized the need for ethical considerations in AI development and deployment.
Ugorji said, “AI has permeated various facets of life. Today, computers can perform tasks traditionally requiring human intelligence, such as understanding natural language, recognizing patterns, learning from data, and making decisions.
“Despite the enormous benefits, the development and deployment of AI digital technology must be approached with ethical rigour. AI should be a tool for empowerment and progress, and not for division and destruction.”
He stressed the Church’s commitment to addressing the ethical concerns surrounding AI.
“We wish to create awareness of the revolutionary positive impact on humanity and society by AI, while raising the ethical concerns that arise from its abuse”, Ugorji said.
Archbishop Ugorji stated that guided by Vatican II Decree on the Means of Social Communication, Inter Mirifica no. 2, the Church recognizes its responsibility to educate the faithful on the positive and negative influences of the media.
Consequently, the CBCN President emphasized the need for balance
He said, “We must strive for a balance that prioritizes human welfare alongside technological progress, mindful of the ethical and moral dilemmas, as well as risks such as job displacement, threat to peace in the world, spread of falsehood through propaganda, manipulation of the human person, and privacy concerns through advanced hacking and deepfakes.”
Onaiyekan commends Pope Francis
Earlier, Cardinal John Onaiyekan, Archbishop Emeritus of Abuja, commended Pope Francis for his courageous stance on Artificial Intelligence (AI).
He said that the Pope’s warnings on the dangers of AI, which has been consistent, resonates beyond Church circles, reaching the highest levels of the international community.
The Cleric said the Prime Minister of Italy, Mrs. Giorgia Meloni, had invited the Pope to participate in the upcoming G7 summit, a first for a pope.
He emphasized the importance of the Pope’s warning while highlighting the Church’s position on scientific progress.
Onaiyekan stated, “It is not everything that we can do that we should do. Even scientific progress must be subject to human, moral, and ethical control. This is a responsibility that humanity abdicates at its great peril.
“All scientific progress is a gift of God to humanity, to be used for human well-being to the glory of God. The same is true for AI, which is the latest in a rapidly changing human control of power and machines from mechanical to electrical and electronic and now computer and digital tools.”
The Cardinal also acknowledged the uncertainty surrounding AI’s future, saying: “We don’t know how far developments in this regard will go. But the warning of Pope Francis remains valid.”
AI not truly intelligent, lacks consciousness and free will – Prof. Akinwale
The guest speaker and Deputy Vice Chancellor of Augustine University, Ilara-Epe, Lagos State, Rev. Fr. Prof Anthony Akinwale, argued that Artificial Intelligence (AI) lacks consciousness and free will, and therefore, cannot be considered truly intelligent.
He expressed concerns about the ethical implications of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Akinwale argued that AI systems lack consciousness and free will, and therefore cannot be considered truly intelligent.
He emphasized that intelligence requires self-consciousness and self-volition, which AI systems do not possess.
“The operations of an intelligent agent are not only intending object, but also conscious operations of the agent.
Self-consciousness of an intelligent agent means when an intelligent agent operates, not only is the object on which the intelligent agent operates present to the agent, but also the intelligent agent is present to himself”, he said.
Akinwale also highlighted the importance of ethical considerations in the development and deployment of AI.
He warned that AI systems can be used to spread misinformation and propaganda, and emphasized the need for responsible decision-making in the development of AI.
Akinwale said, “Communication is not just dissemination of information, but an act of love in which heart speaks to heart.
“Reduced to mere dissemination of information, it precipitously degenerates into dangerous misinformation, into a powerful propaganda machinery of negative social engineering.”
Other Bishops, panelists, and critical stakeholders who spoke emphasized the need for a wise approach to guide the development and deployment of AI, highlighting the importance of the Church’s mission of evangelization in the context of development.
Friday Olokor, Abuja
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It's becoming clear that with all the brain and consciousness theories out there, the proof will be in the pudding. By this I mean, can any particular theory be used to create a human adult level conscious machine. My bet is on the late Gerald Edelman's Extended Theory of Neuronal Group Selection. The lead group in robotics based on this theory is the Neurorobotics Lab at UC at Irvine. Dr. Edelman distinguished between primary consciousness, which came first in evolution, and that humans share with other conscious animals, and higher order consciousness, which came to only humans with the acquisition of language. A machine with only primary consciousness will probably have to come first.
What I find special about the TNGS is the Darwin series of automata created at the Neurosciences Institute by Dr. Edelman and his colleagues in the 1990's and 2000's. These machines perform in the real world, not in a restricted simulated world, and display convincing physical behavior indicative of higher psychological functions necessary for consciousness, such as perceptual categorization, memory, and learning. They are based on realistic models of the parts of the biological brain that the theory claims subserve these functions. The extended TNGS allows for the emergence of consciousness based only on further evolutionary development of the brain areas responsible for these functions, in a parsimonious way. No other research I've encountered is anywhere near as convincing.
I post because on almost every video and article about the brain and consciousness that I encounter, the attitude seems to be that we still know next to nothing about how the brain and consciousness work; that there's lots of data but no unifying theory. I believe the extended TNGS is that theory. My motivation is to keep that theory in front of the public. And obviously, I consider it the route to a truly conscious machine, primary and higher-order.
My advice to people who want to create a conscious machine is to seriously ground themselves in the extended TNGS and the Darwin automata first, and proceed from there, by applying to Jeff Krichmar's lab at UC Irvine, possibly. Dr. Edelman's roadmap to a conscious machine is at https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.10461
They are afraid that machines might become truly conscious eventually and destroy the foundations of their faith to confirm evolution. They're not concerned about the evil that man is inflicting against man, especially through unnecessary and irrational wars globally. Machine consciousness, if achieved, could end religion; that's the real concern.