Pope talks AI ethics with Microsoft head Smith - ET CIO

Vatican City-Pope Francis debated the potential threats artificial intelligence poses to humanity with the head of Microsoft on Wednesday, ahead of a robotics summit at the Vatican, it said. "In the wrong hands, every instrument can become a weapon if the organisational power of humanity cannot keep up with the technology itself," Microsoft head Brad Smith said in an interview ahead of the papal meeting. With Francis he discussed "artificial intelligence at the service of the common good and activities aimed at bridging the digital divide that still persists at the global level," the Vatican said. The pontiff had urged world leaders gathered in Davos last year to ensure that AI "contribute(s) to the service of humanity and to the protection of our common home, rather than to the contrary". Smith told the Vatican's L'Osservatore Romano newspaper that "in order to ensure people have confidence in technology, we must think beyond the technology itself".