Pope Francis Becomes First Pope To Attend The G7 Summit

Pope Francis made history as the first pontiff to attend a G7 conference.

He was greeted by Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni upon arrival by helicopter in the Puglia resort of Borgo Egnazia on Friday, June 14 for the summit.

When Meloni enquired how he was, Francis replied, “Still alive”. “I’m still alive, too,” said the prime minister, to which the Argentine pontiff responded, “That makes two of us.”

“Happy to meet you again,” said Francis as he got off the helicopter, to which Meloni replied: “It’s a great, great pleasure to have you here. Your presence is a great gift.”

Francis will be speaking at a summit session on artificial intelligence and holding ten one-on-one talks with international leaders.

The 87-year-old pope participated in a discussion at the summit on topics related to energy, artificial intelligence, and the Africa-Mediterranean region.

Francis emphasised that in order to ensure that AI stays human-centric and that humans, not robots, are always in charge of deciding when to deploy weapons or even less harmful tools, politicians must take the initiative.

“We would condemn humanity to a future without hope if we took away people’s ability to make decisions about themselves and their lives, by dooming them to depend on the choices of machines,” he said. “We need to ensure and safeguard a space for proper human control over the choices made by artificial intelligence programs: Human dignity itself depends on it.”

For AI to be developed and applied ethically, the pope demanded the creation of an international convention.

He contends that unfettered technological development is too dangerous if it lacks the human values of kindness, forgiveness, morality, and compassion.

“No machine should ever choose to take the life of a human being,” he said.

He concluded: “It is up to everyone to make good use of (AI) but the onus is on politics to create the conditions for such good use to be possible and fruitful.”

A Gentle Reminder: Every obstacle is a stepping stone, every morning; a chance to go again, and those little steps take you closer to your dream.

Nnamdi Okoli