{"text":[[{"start":6.5,"text":"Pope Leo has called for AI to be “disarmed” through robust regulation and limits on its use for warfare, as he warned of the dangers of a technological revolution driven by “the idolatry of profit”."}],[{"start":18.45,"text":"In his first encyclical letter since his elevation to the papacy last year, the US-born Pope warns that “opaque algorithms”, controlled by powerful private companies, threaten “new forms of dehumanisation”. "}],[{"start":31.049999999999997,"text":"Presenting the letter to the world’s 1.4bn Catholics at the Vatican on Monday morning, the Pope said he had reached “disturbing conclusions” about the nature of artificial intelligence, and the need for urgent action to limit its negative impact."}],[{"start":45.65,"text":"Drawing parallels between the technology and the promise and peril of nuclear technology, Pope Leo called for strict regulation to bring it under public control underpinned by “moral discernment”."}],[{"start":58.15,"text":"“Artificial intelligence needs to be disarmed,” he told hundreds of Catholic clergy and laypeople gathered at the Vatican. “The word is strong, I know, but deliberately chosen.”"}],[{"start":68.35,"text":"“The church has long been working for nuclear disarmament,” he said. “Artificial intelligence now demands to be disarmed — freed from logics that turn into an instrument of domination, exclusion and death."}],[{"start":81.85,"text":"“Like nuclear energy, it must be at the service of all and of the common good. Decisions about technology must never be separated from conscience and responsibility.” "}],[{"start":91.69999999999999,"text":"The pontiff expressed alarm at “algorithms that can block access to healthcare, employment and security on the basis of data tainted by prejudice and injustice”. "}],[{"start":103.44999999999999,"text":"The encyclical — considered an authoritative moral teaching on contemporary challenges — comes amid a growing backlash against AI, from US tech groups winning government contracts in sensitive areas such as healthcare to parents protesting against potential harms to children."}],[{"start":120.74999999999999,"text":"Monday’s presentation was also attended by Christopher Olah, co-founder of AI company Anthropic, who acknowledged that “the questions raised by AI are bigger than the AI research community”."}],[{"start":133,"text":"AI developers are driven by “a set of incentives and constraints that can sometimes conflict with doing the right thing”, Olah said, including “the pressure to stay commercially viable to stay at the frontier of research, geopolitical pressures and the older plainer pressures of pride and ambition”."}],[{"start":150.25,"text":"Criticising the transhumanist and posthumanist vision of powerful Silicon Valley entrepreneurs such as Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, the Pope wrote in the encyclical Magnifica Humanitas that AI was developing in an intellectual milieu in which some people are deemed “less useful, less desirable and less worthy”. "}],[{"start":170.2,"text":"He said the Catholic Church had an obligation to speak out about the new forms of exploitation that can result from the growing use of AI, including disturbing content, mining for rare minerals and trafficking. "}],[{"start":182.75,"text":"Failure to speak out clearly, he said, would echo “past complicity and blindness in the face of the injustice of slavery”, which he said some popes had historically helped to legitimise and the Church was late to denounce. "}],[{"start":196.6,"text":"In a historic apology for slavery, Leo wrote: “This constitutes a wound in Christian memory, one from which we cannot consider ourselves detached.”"}],[{"start":206.29999999999998,"text":"“For this, in the name of the Church, I ask for pardon,” he added."}],[{"start":210.49999999999997,"text":"Pope Leo was especially critical of the use of AI in conflicts, warning of the “growing ease” with which autonomous weapons systems can be deployed, making them “less subject to human control”. "}],[{"start":222.64999999999998,"text":"AI has been used during US President Donald Trump’s campaign in Iran to enhance military decision-making."}],[{"start":229.74999999999997,"text":"“It is not permissible to entrust lethal or otherwise irreversible decisions to artificial systems,” he wrote, calling for an “identifiable and verifiable” chain of responsibility and “effective, self-aware and responsible human control” over bomb targets. "}],[{"start":246.09999999999997,"text":"“When a decision to strike becomes automated or opaque, the risk of abdicating responsibility increases,” he wrote."}],[{"start":253.49999999999997,"text":"“All systems used in a war setting must guarantee the possibility of retracing and reconstructing decision-making processes, so that accountability and blame are not collapsed into ‘the machine’.” "}],[{"start":265.25,"text":"The Pope has already publicly criticised the US campaign in Iran, angering Trump and triggering fierce debate with Washington over the conflict. "}],[{"start":273.7,"text":"US vice-president JD Vance and defence secretary Pete Hegseth have tried to argue the attack on Iran was consistent with Christianity, citing the Catholic Church’s “just war” theory. "}],[{"start":285.15,"text":"But the pontiff rebuffed that claim in the encyclical, writing: “Without prejudice to the right to self-defence in the strictest sense, it is important to affirm that the ‘just war’ theory, which has all too often been used to justify any kind of war, is now outdated.”"}],[{"start":307.4,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1779759631_8426.mp3"}