«Servant» or «Master?»: Catholic Ethics and Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

The article deals with the attitude of the Vatican and Catholic community to various systems of artificial intelligence (AI), ethical standards of its use in the context of the common good and social fairness. Catholic hierarchs assert that the situation case when the information offered by BigData, power, and also wealth is concentrated in hands of quiet, pretty, relatively few powerful people tend to aggravate social contradictions and conflicts. Moreover, it can provoke an infringement of civil rights and democratic freedom in European communities. The «Rome Call» for an AI Ethics, signed in February of 2020 by the Pontifical Academy of Life and IT industry leaders, has become a landmark policy agreement in the area of AI ethics. This document is a logical continuation of agreements like «EU guidelines on ethics in artificial intelligence» and also «Policy and investment recommendations for trustworthy AI» adopted by the European Commission in 2019. Church hierarchs and Catholic theologians affirm that the formation of AI ethical code could be accomplished only with the participation of the entire civil society and the Catholic Church, inspired by the norms of Christian morality and also by the principles of its Social Doctrine.