Father Hans Zollner, one of the main experts in the Church safeguard, told Vatican News that the Church can play an important role by stressing the risks of artificial intelligence when people in a position of responsibility are reluctant to do so.
By Christine Seuss
On March 21 and 22, the Vatican organizes a conference entitled ‘AI risks and opportunities for children‘, organized by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in collaboration with the World Childhood Foundation and the Pontifical Gregorian University.
One of the organizers is Father Hans Zollner, a Jesuit priest and psychologist and one of the church’s main experts in terms of safeguard.
“Artificial intelligence has many positive aspects, whether we all use, whether we know it or not,” Father Zollner told Vatican News. “However, it also has many risk factors, especially for children, young people and other vulnerable groups. For example, the fact that it is much easier to manipulate and influence children, or the fact that they come into contact with content such as pornography or are exposed to terrorist or extreme political opinions.”
Children and vulnerable people in particular do not have the tools to be performed to examine in a critical way what appears on their screens, in particular with regard to false news, images, videos, said Father Zollner. But AI also offers some opportunities:
“The advantages that undoubtedly exist,” says Zollner, “include the fact that parents can be supported in monitoring children’s online activities and that AI can also be used to control harmful content”.
However, this type of use must also be intentionally wanted by “social media companies and, of course, by all the people involved in the education and education of children and young people”.
Education opportunities
Among the opportunities for the education sector, Father Zollner sees above all the possibility of “personalizing learning opportunities and educational content”, that it is possible to deliver more quickly and more targeted.
The AI, said Zollner, “if it is appropriately deployed”, also offers the possibility of identifying cyberbullying or cyber and cyber to the point.
Participation of vulnerable groups
This is why young people and representatives of vulnerable groups were also deliberately involved in the current conference.
Zollner said he wanted the participants to hear “the victims of abuse who have been neat” by such methods, that artificial intelligence has also facilitated – in other words, people who have been trained in a relationship of trust by people who then wanted to exploit and abuse them, and who were then abused in a sometimes terrible way. “
“This is also what our panel is on Saturday. Protect, provide, participate. Because the idea behind it is that children and young people must be educated and receive the help they need to stand out and work with others, with their parents, with their families, with their friends, to defend themselves if they know or if they feel that something goes very bad.”
In addition to the victims, the conference features government officials responsible for the region in question, representatives of the police and technological companies. Zollner underlines that, in particular, technological bosses must develop an awareness of the common responsibility that they bear if they choose not to focus on the protection of vulnerable individuals in cyberspace.
A focus for a long time
In 2017, the Zollner’s Center for Child Protection of the Gregorian University organized an international conference which led to ‘Statement on the dignity of the child in the digital world ”.
“I see this conference in collaboration with the Pontifical Academy of Science and the Queen of the Childhood Foundation of Sweden as a continuation of this very important event,” said Zollner. “I continue to see it as a sign that we need more research, more cooperation between the different disciplines, including in science, but of course also more than that. And I also see it as a sign that the voice of religions and the Catholic Church is and remains important on this issue. ”
The fact that the secretary of state Cardinal Pietro Parolin wanted to give a speech at the current conference also shows how important the subject is for the Vatican, said Zollner.
“I think this conference is an important sign,” said Father Zollner, “that we, in the Church, continue to engage in a life sector which is very important for everyone, and that we reach almost everyone in this world. I also think it is important that we also recall those who can help find the virtual world. In particular in policies and economics, especially in the police and economics. It is difficult to highlight the negative aspects of artificial intelligence.
