CCBI News: Artificial Intelligence – Positive Aspects

December 16, 2024

Dear Friends of CCBI,

Positive Aspects of Artificial Intelligence

In bioethics and moral theology we often talk about news that is anything but good, but we must deal with reality and how we can and should react. It is also important to recognize the good aspects of the world of bioethics and to report on them, too. We would be pastorally imbalanced if we only presented the ‘clear and present dangers’ that abound. Our Catholic faith helps us to see beyond that while not ignoring reality, rather it encourages us to rejoice in what is right and to stand against the wrongs that prevent human flourishing, including the state of our planet. As Pope Francis says: we are all interconnected. We trust in God at work in our world with belief in the truth that transcends our difficulties…in God’s good time, not ours. Meantime we are called to pray and work, ora et labora, in cooperation with God’s grace that is freely given to us.

Some recent events highlight the positive aspects of some advances, while not forgetting the negative aspects. Artificial intelligence (AI) was brought to the world’s attention this week when Canadian citizen Dr Geoffrey Hinton was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics. Hinton, along with John Hopfield, as stated by the MIT Technology Review, “…invented a type of pattern-matching neural network that could store and reconstruct data. Hinton built on this technology, known as a Hopfield network, to develop backpropagation, an algorithm that lets neural networks learn.”

Dr Hinton explains the good that AI and machine learning have been doing, for example their increasing value in health care for diagnostic purposes, with excellent results for speed and accuracy. The Nuffield Foundation describes AI technologies as,

…increasingly able to make sense of varied and unstructured kinds of data, such as natural language text and images. Machine-learning has been the most successful type of AI in recent years and is the underlying approach of many of the applications currently in use.

Rather than following pre-programmed instructions, machine-learning allows systems to discover patterns and derive its own rules when it is presented with data and new experiences.

AI in Healthcare

AI is used extensively in health care, in medical imaging and speedy compilation and interpretation of scans, for neurological conditions (speech pathways, etc.), in robotic surgery, and so on. It has proven its worth in research, providing vast quantities of relevant literature immediately and directly on one’s computer screen or phone. To earlier generations, raised on doing research in library stacks, relying on note-taking, photo-copying, etc., AI is a technological wonder. And it is, when used for good reasons and in accordance with developing ethical regulations related to transparency, accountability, reliability, safety, bias and other factors.

Dr Hinton’s Warnings; The Vatican’s Questions

In recent years Dr Hinton has also been issuing warnings about ethical questions regarding AI, especially the possibility that the more the neural pathways of AI develop, the faster and even more accurate they will become at ‘thinking’ and responding than humans. Will they become more intelligent than we humans? Will we overly rely on machine data for our decision making? Can machines be ‘ethical,’ or, more accurately, be a reliable source of factual information necessary in making ethical decisions? The Vatican also asks major questions: what is intelligence? Is it material only? Can we rely on algorithms in all aspects of our being? Can a machine have what humans call ‘agency’: conscience, intelligence, self-awareness? Should we trust a machine rather than people?

Human Error

Illustrating the need for such questions, the recent discovery that several people in Canada died or fell violently ill this summer after a listeriosis outbreak was reported as an ‘algorithm failure.’ Data had indicated to food inspection agencies that there were no problems in a named factory that seems to be involved as the source of the outbreak. The data had stated the measures the factory said it had undertaken. What is omitted here is that data alone is unable to confirm that the measures were actually being carried out. Blaming the algorithm is futile: it is more likely that the structure of the data was inadequate, and the subsequent lack of inspection by those responsible was at fault, as the ensuing legal case will seek to show. One can’t sue a machine.

AI’s Effect on Employment

There is a major concern in some places about the effect AI will have on employment. This is more than understandable, and further study and information is needed to see whether this is inevitable or will in fact encourage employment growth in new areas. Right now, we can see that staffed check-outs in stores are gradually being replaced by machines, as are check-ins at airports and other transit hubs, in service bureaus, ‘order at the machine’ restaurants, libraries, and so on. This may or may not play out to great detriment to society, but needs to be monitored along with other changes such as robotization in factories, since many of the jobs that could be threatened are already in the lower-paid sector.

Human Priorities

CCBI has noted before that the Vatican has been paying close attention to AI and robotics, hosting a major seminar on it at least annually for the past five years. The Pontifical Academy for Life (PAV) started the “Rome Call for Ethics in AI” in 2020, (CCBI attended), helping us become aware of the effort that is being made by the most important technological companies to ensure human priorities are at the forefront. The document issued by the PAV in 2020 said:

Now more than ever, we must guarantee an outlook in which AI is developed with a focus not on technology, but rather for the good of humanity and of the environment, of our common and shared home and of its human inhabitants, who are inextricably connected. In other words, a vision in which human beings and nature are at the heart of how digital innovation is developed, supported rather than gradually replaced by technologies that behave like rational actors but are in no way human. It is time to begin preparing for more technological future in which machines will have a more important role in the lives of human beings, but also a future in which it is clear that technological progress affirms the brilliance of the human race and remains dependent on its ethical integrity.

It’s always said that technology is double-edged and can be used for good and ill, and this is true of AI. Much depends on who is using it, who controls it and to what purpose it is being used. As we can see, the Catholic Church fortunately stays informed and involved in such matters and CCBI will continue to follow its contributions to the ethical concerns raised. For your delight and to illustrate a positive aspect, here is one example of the way the Vatican itself is using AI to bring the wonders of St Peter’s right into our homes!

Vatican, Microsoft unveil AI-generated ‘digital twin’ of St. Peter’s | USCCB

Sources

Geoffrey Hinton, AI pioneer and figurehead of doomerism, wins Nobel Prize in Physics | MIT Technology Review
Artificial-Intelligence-AI-in-healthcare-and-research-1.pdf
An algorithm was supposed to fix Canada’s food safety system. Instead, it missed a deadly listeria outbreak – The Globe and Mail 
rc_pont-acd_life_doc_20202228_rome-call-for-ai-ethics_en.pdf

Pope Francis’ Intentions for December

For pilgrims of hope
We pray that this Jubilee Year strengthen our faith, helping us to recognize the Risen Christ in our daily lives, and that it may transform us into pilgrims of Christian hope.

Moira and Bambi