Jesuit Conference on Magnifica Humanitas’ Guidance on AI: Part 4

Magnifica Humanitas (Magnificent Humanity) – Continued – Part 4

In recent editions of the bulletin, we have been discussing the first encyclical letter that Pope Leo released in May, “Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence,” (MH) this letter covers many topics, including Catholic Social Teaching, that go beyond the topic of artificial intelligence (AI), touching deeply on the dignity of each human person.

The Office of Justice and Ecology of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States composed a letter to the leaders of the US House of Representatives and the Senate on June 2, offering highlights of Pope Leo’s guidance for policymakers related to AI – both ethical and practical. We are sharing highlights from that published letter with you here.

The letter from the Jesuit Conference emphasizes and summarizes six key areas outlined in Magnifica Humanitas, calling for a need for discernment:
– Truth and Accountability
– Supporting Workers
– Economic Inequality
– Protecting Children & Supporting Families
– Slave Labor
– Defense

So far, we have covered the first four areas listed above. This week, we’ll review the points discussed regarding Slave Labor.

In one of the most profound sections of the encyclical, Pope Leo warns against ignoring modern slavery in supply chains and the human trafficking that online systems can facilitate.
“Nothing in the world of AI is immaterial or magical. …A significant part of the digital economy’s functioning relies on the silent work of millions of people engaged in essential yet largely unseen activities, such as data labeling, model training, and content moderation, often involving disturbing material. In many cases, these workers are young people, predominantly women, working under demanding conditions for minimal wages. … In some regions of the world, children and adolescents work in dangerous conditions, crushing the materials from which rare earth elements are extracted. The bodies of these people are scarred, injured, and worn down so that computational flow may continue uninterruptedly. Furthermore, criminal networks use online platforms, messaging systems, anonymous payment methods and profiling techniques in order to recruit, control and transport victims of trafficking – very often minors – reducing men and women to “data” to be tracked and “packages” to be moved around within the same digital circuits that support much of the global economy.” (173)

To combat these situations of exploitation, the pope urges that:
1. Supply chains should remain transparent.
2. Companies must adopt clear criteria for the protection of workers and societies.
3. Government, companies and civil society must work together to make sure that technological tools are not being used to recruit or control victims (179).

We’ll conclude this summary next week as we touch on the points related to Defense.