Why is Pope Francis attending the G7 summit? What's his plan for the meet?

Group of Seven Nations (G7) gathered this week in southern Italy to discuss key priorities such as the conflict in Russia-Ukraine and West Asia, relationships with developing countries, migration and its links to climate and food security, and artificial intelligence.

The leaders will hold a final day of talks at their annual summit on Friday, with Pope Francis putting in a historic appearance to discuss AI.

He is the first pope to participate in the summit discussions.

Here’s what he will do at the summit.

Raising the alarm about AI

The 87-year-old is no stranger to AI as a deepfake photo of him in a white puffer jacket went viral last year.

More from Explainers

How ChatGPT is becoming everyone’s BFF and why that’s dangerous This Week in Explainers: How recovering from Gen-Z protests is a Himalayan task for Nepal

However, his concerns about AI are far beyond an unflattering shot, now taking centre stage at the global summit.

At the 50th G7 Summit, Pope Francis will address the leaders, with an intention to use the occasion to push for stronger guardrails on AI following the boom in generative artificial intelligence kickstarted by OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot.

The session is open to envoys from countries that are not part of G7.

Francis will effectively be discussing the ethical ramifications of AI monitoring since the G7 has spearheaded the conversation on the subject.

Impact Shorts

More Shorts

Ghaziabad woman dead, pilgrims attacked in bus… How Nepal’s Gen-Z protests turned into a living hell for Indian tourists

Were bodyguards involved in Charlie Kirk’s shooting? The many conspiracies surrounding the killing

Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni invited him knowing the potential impact of his star power and moral authority to twin a broadly shared concern about AI with his priorities about peace and social justice.

On the sidelines of his AI speech, Francis has a full day of bilateral meetings.

He is set to meet Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and other invited leaders from Algeria, Brazil, India, Kenya, Turkey.

The pope will also meet with G7 members, including US president Joe Biden, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau and French president Emmanuel Macron.

Significance of his presence

According to Italian church historian Alberto Melloni, the pope’s participation at G7 breaks with an age-old custom in the Roman Catholic Church of turning down such invitations because a pope does not require state leaders or anyone else to grant him a platform to speak.

Given his history of defying expectations, according to The New York Times, Melloni believes that Pope Francis would view the summit as a high-profile chance to reiterate his call for an end to conflicts like the wars in Gaza and Ukraine.

John Kirton, a political scientist at the University of Toronto who directs the G7 Research Group think tank, told The Associated Press, “The pope is, well, a very special kind of a celebrity.”

He mentioned that the previous summit with this level of celebrity power took place in 2005 in Gleneagles, Scotland, where participants agreed to waive the $40 billion in debt that 18 of the world’s poorest nations owed the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Before the summit, nearly a million people attended the Live8 event in London, which was organised by Sting, The Who, and a reunited Pink Floyd as a show of support against famine and poverty in Africa.

“Gleneagles actually hit a home run and for some it’s one of the most successful summits,” Kirton said.

While there isn’t any public pressure of this kind on the G7 leaders in Puglia, Pope Francis is expected to use his personal moral authority to reiterate calls for AI safety measures and draw attention to the dangers AI poses to society and peace.

His views on AI

During his yearly peace address this year, the pope of Argentina called for an international treaty to guarantee that AI is developed and used ethically.

He contends that it would be too dangerous for technology to advance unrestricted if it were to lack human virtues like forgiveness, morality, compassion, and mercy.

Pope Francis brought up several issues in addition to these in his peace address.

According to him, AI must prioritise preserving fundamental human rights, fostering peace, and guarding against false information, discrimination, and distortion.

AI concerns

Generative AI technology has dazzled the world with its capabilities to produce humanlike-responses, but it’s also sparked fears about AI safety and led to a jumble of global efforts to rein it in.

Some worry about catastrophic but far off risks to humanity because of its potential for creating new bioweapons and supercharging disinformation.

Others fret about its effect on everyday life, through algorithmic bias that results in discrimination or AI systems that eliminate jobs.

Japan, which held the G7’s rotating presidency last year, launched its Hiroshima AI process to draw up international guiding principles and a code of conduct for AI developers.

Adding to those efforts, PM Fumio Kishida last month unveiled a framework for global regulation of generative AI, which are systems that can quickly churn out new text, images, video, audio in response to prompts and commands.

The European Union was one of the first movers with its wide-ranging AI Act that’s set to take effect over the next two years and could act as a global model.

The act targets any AI product or service offered in the bloc’s 27 nations, with restrictions based on the level of risk they pose.

In the US, President Biden issued an executive order on AI safeguards and called for legislation to strengthen it, while some states like California and Colorado have been trying to pass their own AI bills, with mixed results.

Antitrust enforcers on both sides of the Atlantic have been scrutinizing big AI companies including Microsoft, Amazon and OpenAI over whether their dominant positions stifle competition.

Britain kickstarted a global dialogue on reining in AI’s most extreme dangers with a summit last fall. At a follow-up meeting in Seoul, companies pledged to develop the technology safely. France is set to host another meeting in the series early next year. The United Nations has also weighed in with its first resolution on AI.

With inputs from The Associated Press