ROME CALL: Católica promotes charter of ethical principles for Artificial Intelligence

‘Patent developments in the field of artificial intelligence affect the way we teach, the curriculum, our relationship with students, interpersonal relationships, but also university management models, the way we manage people, how we manage our activity,’ said the President of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Isabel Capeloa Gil, at the signing of the agreement.

Action has become imperative and, for Isabel Capeloa Gil, the future will be decided between those who have the capacity to co-create and mere users. Universidade Católica Portuguesa wants to be unequivocally on the side of co-creation. As such, for the university's President, ROME CALL is an act, neither reactive nor prescriptive.

This mission has, in fact, materialised in the work that both the Digital Ethics Lab and the Centre for Research Studies in Law are doing on these issues.

‘It's not a question of looking at Artificial Intelligence as a threat that must be hyper-regulated, which is like stopping the sea with our hands. We must have supervision, but our relationship must be neither reactive nor prescriptive. We believe it should be a relationship of co-creation,’ he explained.

The agreement signed between Católica and the Pontifical Academy for Life ‘is a guide and an orientation for what will necessarily be something that is part of our mission’, for ‘a future that we want to be one of greater development for humanity’, summarised Isabel Capeloa Gil.

Also for Archbishop Vicenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life - which developed ROME CALL - ethics must accompany the entire cycle of technology design and production, from the moment we choose which projects to invest in.

With this in mind, he introduces the idea of ‘Algoretics versus Algocracy’, arguing that ethics must also be associated with the creation of algorithms. ‘The concept of Algoretics highlights the importance of the link between technology and ethics for human development that is worthy of humanity,’ stresses Vicenzo Paglia, who also stresses that ROME CALL aims to contribute to “humanising technology and not technologising man”.

‘We are at a crucial moment: all the intellectuals and institutions that understand this issue must come together in a new alliance to help develop a humanity that is more equal, fairer and truly human,’ he said.

The signing ceremony also included a talk by Arlindo Oliveira, a professor at the Instituto Superior Técnico, in which he emphasised the importance of thinking about the ethics of artificial intelligence. ‘Any technology raises significant ethical questions,’ he said, giving examples such as steam engines, electricity or nuclear energy. However, ‘perhaps artificial intelligence raises more because it is such a powerful technology’ and because, as such, it ‘raises risks’.

He highlighted the possibility of use by more intentional people or institutions, the ‘creation of information bubbles and the consequent difficulty of dialogue’, which can lead to the radicalisation of positions. But also the ‘erosion of privacy’: ‘Many of these models will know better than we do who we are going to vote for in the next elections,’ he warned. Manipulation of information and disinformation, discrimination and bias or the concentration of power in these systems were other risks pointed out by the researcher.

The future applications of artificial intelligence and how they might interact with human beings ‘raise extremely complex ethical questions’, warned Arlindo Oliveira, pointing out that ‘universities, especially those with a humanist slant, are the right place to think about these issues’. ‘It would be interesting to think before the problems are put into practice.’

Starring representatives from Cisco, IBM and Microsoft, also signatories of the document, there was also a round table discussion, moderated by William Hasselberger, director of the Digital Ethics Lab.

Lara Tropa, from IBM, emphasised that technology must ‘be at the service of human beings. And artificial intelligence will be at the service of human beings to increase and contribute to making their lives better. It will increase human intelligence’.

Miguel Moreira, from Cisco, argued that ‘technology has to be available to everyone, at the same level’ in order to boost inclusion. And the development of artificial intelligence should be seen as a positive process and a collective responsibility. ‘If we let our artificial intelligence be affected by mechanisms that aren't good, we're going to have a problem. As companies, it's up to us to embrace ethics in artificial intelligence in a responsible and serious way.’

And for Microsoft's Abel Aguiar, ‘artificial intelligence only makes sense if it is an intrinsic mechanism for amplifying human capacity’, which brings greater efficiency and the ability to solve complex problems, with the human being responsible for ensuring that it is used ‘as a tool and not as a weapon’. Emotional Intelligence, Creativity and Moral and Ethical Judgement will continue to be human traits and ‘not something that machines can determine’.

In his speech at the end of the event, the Chancellor of Católica, Mgr Rui Valério, emphasised that ‘artificial intelligence is at the service of ethics, because it is at the service of the principle that the human being is an end in itself’.

‘My wish is that artificial intelligence will make a significant contribution to my progress as a human being, that it will help me to be more supportive, more free,’ he concluded.