Story by Joe Pisani
In the last class of the semester, one of my students gave an impassioned speech about the dangers of artificial intelligence. I wish Pope Leo XIV could have heard it, because two days later the newly elected pontiff offered his own sobering account of why we must be cautious of where AI is taking us.
“In our own day, the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice and labor,” Leo XIV, said in his first address to the College of Cardinals.
The challenges it presents are more insidious than those society confronted during the Industrial Revolution, when Pope Leo XIII wrote the encyclical “Rerum Novarum” about workers’ rights and capitalism.
Like most of us, my student was astonished at AI’s ability to solve his problems at his customer service job. He got an immediate response to a customer’s question about how many bags of cement would fit into a truck he rented.
It was a pedestrian question, but that simple encounter demonstrated the temptation AI has for us. We’re intoxicated by its potential, when we should be wary of its threat.
Enter Pope Leo, who has said AI will be a fundamental concern of his papacy.
Deep fakes in porn and politics, misinformation, intellectual property infringement, not to mention Mark Zuckerberg’s prophetic vision that in the future we’ll be blessed with AI friends to allay the loneliness.
Pope Francis also issued a warning about AI’s ability to “create partially or completely false narratives believed and broadcast as if they were true.” And in January, the Vatican published a document about the limitations of AI and the ethical issues surrounding its development and use.
Artificial intelligence reminds me of that famous “Twilight Zone” episode about the benevolent 9-foot-tall aliens called Kanamits, who came to Earth to solve all our problems, bring peace, prosperity and technological progress with the goal “To Serve Man,” which was the title of their manifesto. Humanity would eat, drink and be merry … until someone translated “To Serve Man” and discovered it was actually a cook book.
I have friends who are taking a “let’s wait and see” attitude, and find ChatGPT useful in drafting letters of recommendation and other documents, even though someday that helpful program will probably have their jobs.
Writers are already in the crosshairs, with an estimated 30 percent of jobs disappearing, and some media companies are using AI to produce stories about real estate and sports. Non-profits are even relying on AI to create press releases.
When it comes to being expendable, journalists are at the top of the list, along with software engineers, cashiers, factory workers and many others.
AI has also led to rampant cheating in colleges and high schools. Last year, I asked a class to critique a TED Talk by a famous defense attorney, and I was surprised and proud when I read their submissions.
“These are pretty good,” I thought, “I’m getting through to them.”
But the joke was on me. After reading a few assignments, I began to detect the same phrases, the same adjectives, the same observations and it occurred to me that ChatGPT was the actual author.
Now, when I give them writing assignments, I utter the same plea: “I want your original work. I prefer your flawed human intelligence to artificial intelligence. Don’t go over to the dark side.” It’s often to no avail because the temptation is too great, and the deception is too easy to pull off. For a time, I was running the work through an AI detector, but it added hours to the grading process.
Another professor I know at a respected Jesuit University is so distraught that he requires his students to do their writing assignments in class. It’s a less-than-perfect solution because it takes away from time that could be spent more productively in discussion and debate.
In another class, I asked the students about their career aspirations and got responses that included finance, health care, design, journalism and education.
I sighed and gave them the bad news, which probably never occurred to them. This toy they love tinkering with will probably be responsible for their jobs disappearing. Who’s going to need a graphic designer in five years?
In articulating his vision, Pope Leo XIV rightly identified artificial intelligence as one of the most critical issues of our time, a technological development that could threaten the future of humanity while it promises to save it. Sounds like the Kanamits to me.