Organising hope
Last Sunday, the Fifth World Day of the Poor, Pope Francis said: “Recently I was thinking about what a bishop close to the poor, Don Tonino Bello, used to say: ‘We cannot be content to hope; we have to organise hope’. Unless our hope translates into decisions and concrete gestures of concern, justice, solidarity and care for our common home, the sufferings of the poor will not be relieved, the economy of waste that forces them to live on the margins will not be converted, their expectations will not blossom. We have to organise hope... not give a coin here and there. This is what the Church is asks of us.”
Algor-ethics
Addressing the 41st session of the General Conference of UNESCO, Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Parolin said: “If it is undeniable that ‘technological development has allowed us to solve problems that were insurmountable until a few years ago’, then it is equally true that it can produce ‘a dangerous spell: instead of delivering the tools that improve their care to human life, there is the risk of giving life to the logic of the devices that decide its value’. For the Holy See, “the principle that not everything that is technically possible or viable is thereby ethically acceptable remains ever valid”. In order to speak correctly of an ethics of artificial intelligence, it will be necessary that the development of every algorithm draws on an ethical vision, ‘algor-ethics’ to “understand better what intelligence, conscience, emotionality, affective intentionality and autonomy of moral action mean in this context”.
Things that pass
In his Angelus last Sunday, the Pope said: “What are we investing our lives in? On things that pass, such as money, success, appearance, well-being? We will take away none of these things. Are we attached to earthly things, as if we will live forever? When we are young and healthy, everything is fine, but when the time comes to depart, we have to leave everything behind.”
(Compiled by Fr Joe Borg)