Pope Francis on artificial intelligence: Does it really risk "barbarism"?

At The Common Good in the Digital Age conference last weekend, Pope Francis warned that artificial intelligence (AI) could, if unchecked by ethics, become "an enemy of the common good". But is his assessment of AI as a potential new "barbarism" a fair one? The Common Good in the Digital Age was a three-day conference held at the end of September in the Vatican, which saw academics and religious authorities discuss the social, ethical and political implications of recent technological developments. As part of the conference, Pope Francis addressed diplomats, financiers and tech company executives, warning that the rush to develop artificial intelligence must also be accompanied with ethical evaluations of the common good to mitigate the risk of increasing social inequality. "If technological advancement became the cause of increasingly evident inequalities, it would not be true and real progress. "If mankind's so-called technological progress were to become an enemy of the common good, ...