Pope Leo made news Monday with a warning about the ethics of artificial intelligence. He asserts that the world cannot leave AI to its developers, and that governments as well as ordinary people must stick up for humanity.
His statement brings to mind the old saying that war is too important to be left to the generals. Other people have an interest too.
Leo used a word loaded with historical meaning, colonialism.
Even today, colonialism assumes new forms. It no longer dominates only bodies, but appropriates data, transforming personal lives into exploitable information. Entire regions… are currently subjected to a new mindset of extraction: that of health data, epidemiological profiles, genetic maps and demographic information. These have become the new “rare earths” of power.
The American Pope went on to mention one of the great wrongs of colonialism: slavery. “New forms of slavery are fueled by economic chains and digital infrastructures,” he said. The mention of this history bore so much weight that it apparently prompted the Pope, in the name of the Vatican, to “ask for pardon” for the Church’s own long history of condoning slavery.
Why refer to the European colonial empires that dominated much of the world from the 1500’s until their collapse after World War II? It turns out there’s a lot in that word.
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