Kissinger spent much of his career thinking about the dangers of nuclear weapons but, at 99, he is concerned the powers of AI could be far more devastating than even the biggest bomb.

Mr Kissinger's warning is a sign of the growing global concern about the power of "thinking machines" as they interact with global business, finance and warfare.

In his book, "The Age of AI and Our Human Future," which he co-authored in 2021, Kissinger argues that AI will have sweeping implications for militaries, altering doctrines and battle tactics and influencing the global balance of power.

Kissinger cautioned that AI systems could transform warfare just as they have chess or other games of strategy, as they are capable of making moves that no human would consider but that have devastatingly effective consequences.

"What I'm talking about is that in exploring legitimate questions that we ask them, they come to conclusions that would not necessarily be the same as we — and we will have to live in their world," Kissinger said.

AI concerns compared to nuclear weapons

He called on the leaders of the United States and China, the world's tech giants, to begin an urgent dialogue about how to apply ethical limits and standards for AI.

Kissinger's concern about AI has been compared to the crisis of unknown risks that surrounded the development of nuclear weapons during the second half of the 20th century that required international coordination to rein in.

Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett also expressed concern about the potential dangers of AI during the company's shareholder meeting last week, stating that it could be compared to the development of the atomic bomb because "we won't be able to un-invent it."

Kissinger remains optimistic about the ability of humanity to limit the destructive capabilities of AI when it's applied to warfare, stating that if we don't solve the issue, it could literally destroy us and that we have no choice but to address it urgently.

Sources

Washington Post

Fortune

CBS News

Fr Jeffrey Kirby, a pastor at Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church in South Carolina, told Fox News Digital that any development and/or use of AI "must defer always to the human person.

"Our greatest asset as a human family is our ability to form and build relationships," said Fr Kirby.

According to Vatican News, synod organisers in Asia used AI to help draft a final document during the Asian synodal continental assembly in Thailand, held in February. The report added that the event was the first to incorporate digital technologies to gather input from participants.

The data was received from small groups that discussed their responses to questions posed in the working document and then submitted summaries using Google Forms. AI software then processed the data, with humans reviewing the generated data for any inaccuracies.

Fr Clarence Devadass, a Malaysian priest and a consultant to the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue, said the AI process was effective in sorting data and picking up on keywords, but human resources were needed to ensure accuracy.

AI has limited place in society

However, not all Catholic leaders are convinced about using AI in the Church.

"AI can have its limited place in society, but it must always be in service to human ingenuity and creativity. It cannot usurp a place that belongs to the human mind and heart," Fr Kirby said.

"We can sometimes forget the ‘artificial' in AI," Kirby added.

"'Artificial' is a far cry from what is natural and authentic. As human beings, we live in a world of relationships marked by love, hope, the giving of thanks and mutual accompaniment with others," he also said.

Kirby continued, "The Bible teaches us that we are made in the image and likeness of God, not in the image of AI. We cannot allow AI to steal what is human."

Fr Kirby said, "Synodality is about real human relationships and interactions. AI has no place in the synodal process. The use of AI in the synodal process is the very death of the authentic process itself."

Sources

New York Post

Catholic News Agency

Vatican News

CathNews New Zealand

The Israeli scholar, known for the best-selling book Sapiens, told a science conference that AI systems such as ChatGPT have breached a new threshold because they are capable of using language to shape human culture.

"Simply by gaining mastery of the human language, AI has all it needs in order to cocoon us in a Matrix-like world of illusions," he told the Frontiers Forum science conference in Switzerland.

"Contrary to what some conspiracy theories assume, you don't really need to implant chips in people's brains in order to control them or to manipulate them. For thousands of years, prophets and poets and politicians have used language and storytelling in order to manipulate and to control people and to reshape society," Harari said

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In reality, though, the head of the Catholic Church never wore that designer, Balenciaga-like jacket: The image was nothing more than a hyper-realistic A.I. generation.

Behind this work of forgery was Pablo Xavier, a construction worker in Chicago who asked media not to use his last name for fear of backlash, reports Chris Stokel-Walker for Buzzfeed News.

"I just thought it was funny to see the Pope in a funny jacket," Xavier tells the publication.

(The story and Xavier's interview were published before Pope Francis was hospitalized with a respiratory infection and will likely spend a few days there, though he does not have Covid-19. Since this announcement, his condition has been improving.)

Xavier's four pictures of a "dripped-out" pope were created using the popular A.I. tool Midjourney, which generates images based on text prompts.

However, like lots of computer-produced artwork, the photos of the pope are not perfect.

His smeared hand, misshapen glasses, and blurry cross necklace are all telltale signs of A.I. interference.

Nevertheless, the depictions tricked people, including model Chrissy Teigen.

"I thought the pope's puffer jacket was real and didn't give it a second thought. no way am I surviving the future of technology," tweeted Teigen on Friday.

While the pope wearing a perfectly tailored, arctic white puffer could command a laugh out of even the most stoic internet users, the portrayal of public figures in realistic, A.I.-generated art has real-world implications.

Though he created the images for fun, Xavier tells Buzzfeed he had instant regrets once they went viral. He saw posts criticizing the Catholic Church for unnecessary spending, citing his A.I. creations as evidence.

Beyond the images of the pope-looking fly, Midjourney-generated content has tricked the internet on other occasions.

The same program is responsible for recently circulated phony photographs of Donald Trump getting arrested and Queen Elizabeth doing her own laundry.

While many were quick to debunk the Trump arrest photos due to their political implications, some never questioned the image of the pope and just kept scrolling.

"If Trump has been publicly arrested, I'm asking myself, why am I seeing this image, but Twitter's trending topics, tweets and the national newspapers and networks are not reflecting that?"

Mike Caulfield, a researcher at the University of Washington's Center for an Informed Public, tells the Atlantic's Charlie Warzel.

"But for the pope, your only available heuristic is would the pope wear a cool coat? Since almost all of us don't have any expertise there, we fall back on the style heuristic, and the answer we come up with is: maybe."

Creating fake images is not the only problem that users are having with A.I. programs.

For one, the models also have coded biases.

When prompted with words like "CEO" or "director", image generator DALL-E 2 churns out pictures of white men 97 percent of the time. Continue reading