Modeling complex data relationships remains a foundational pillar of modern AI. Some have even gone as far as suggesting it could have predicted the election of the new Pope—quite a bold claim.
Anyway, what is a bit more likely—and requires no AI to predict—is that this newly elected Pope will give AI a very special place in his concerns, and hopefully offer new insight into a question whose anthropological challenges remain widely overlooked.
A mathematician by training, Leo XIV explicitly referred to the challenges of our digital age from his very first words, placing himself in the lineage of his distant predecessor Leo XIII, who, in the nineteenth century, tried to address the societal shifts brought by the industrial age. As today's political voices still struggle to define a clear and holistic approach to AI, his perspective will be all the more awaited.
On the use of AI, let's hope our societies' critical thinking sharpens as rapidly and firmly as today's technological momentum.
