VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The Catholic Church needs to expand its safeguarding efforts to include the new threats and opportunities posed by artificial intelligence, top organizers of a Vatican conference said.

‘We are really currently in a war’ on two fronts when it comes to protecting children from abuse and mistreatment, Joachim von Braun, president of the Pontifical Academy for Sciences, said at a Vatican news conference March 20.

There is the traditional battleground that most safeguarding guidelines and policies address: protecting minors from ‘one-on-one’ exploitation by a perpetrator in their environment at home, school, church, society and online, he said. But the new frontier is where AI and gender-based violence have come together in very sophisticated ways and ‘at scale’ that is, where the crime and its victims are easily and rapidly multiplied, he said.

The church has a role to play, he and other speakers at the conference said.

The Catholic Church must work with science-based knowledge about AI and ‘deeply engage in the regulatory debate, otherwise, we cannot win these two wars at two frontiers,’ von Braun said.

The president of the papal academy and others were presenting a conference organized by the academy with the Institute of Anthropology: Interdisciplinary Studies on Human Dignity and Care in Rome and the World Childhood Foundation, founded by Queen Silvia of Sweden to help prevent child sexual abuse and exploitation.

The conference, scheduled for March 20-22 at the Vatican, was to look at the risks and opportunities of AI for children and to come up with a common commitment for safeguarding. Some of the risks include AI being used to: generate and distribute child sexual abuse material; groom children online; facilitate human trafficking; and infringe on a child’s right to privacy and dignity with excessive monitoring, according to the conference program. However, AI can also be used to promote the safety and dignity of children as well as expand their access and opportunities in health care and education, the speakers said. But to do that, they added, there must be greater awareness about AI, clear and consistent regulation by governments and ethical guidelines in AI development. ‘Scientists play a key role,’ said von Braun, a German agricultural scientist specializing in food security. Scientists at corporations or in academia ‘are writing the algorithms out of which the risks and opportunities result.’ Calling on mathematicians and applied computer scientists to follow ethical rules is new, he said. ‘For centuries, mathematics was considered free of ethical concerns. That’s no longer the case.’ Cardinal Peter Turkson, chancellor of the papal academy, said church members are already working with AI practitioners and scientists ‘from Silicon Valley’ who come to Rome for the so-called ‘Minerva dialogues.’ These ‘conversations’ focus on the impact of AI so that when experts go back to work, ‘they will be able to also influence their colleagues in the development of these models’ to be more ethical, he said. However, what AI does cannot be left only in the hands of industry, and governments must address the use of AI, too.

Speakers: Church has role in fight against AI-generated exploitation

The Vatican hosted a conference to address the threats posed by artificial intelligence (AI) to children, especially in relation to gender-based violence, child sexual abuse, and exploitation. The conference aimed to explore the risks and opportunities AI presents and to develop a common commitment for safeguarding children. Experts discussed the role of the Catholic Church in expanding its safeguarding efforts, the importance of regulatory debates, and the need for ethical guidelines in AI development.