Scholars gathered at the Vatican for the Humanity 2.0 Human Flourishing conference and committed to building a model to align artificial intelligence with human flourishing.
Engineers, business owners and experts in various fields were brought together to answer questions on innovative solutions for human flourishing.
One of the attendees was Alessandro Distanto, the Co-Founder of Hallow, a prayer app that has been downloaded 14 million times around the globe. He brought insight into how this combination of faith and technology plays a role in this area.
“The fruit of prayer is always action,” he said. “And so we’re trying to really develop a holistic journey for our users to grow in their personal relationship with God, to discern His will in their lives but then also to live that out practically in their families and local communities and ultimately part of the global community.”
Another guest was an expert in the fields of ethics related to law, business and theology, Dr Elizabeth Kincaide. She studies the role that ethics plays in life fulfilment.
“A lot of times when people talk about ethics they say, well you just have to make the right choice or the wrong choice but ethics is about living a flourishing life,” she said. “It’s about living a life where you are fully human, you’re fully who God made you to be.”
The conference also featured a priest who spoke on a panel about the benefits and drawbacks of the use of artificial intelligence for the global community. He spoke of the need to understand the human person and purpose of life and the measures needed to harness AI to help humanity rather than destroy it.
In addition to committing to address the impact of artificial intelligence on humanity, another resolution of the conference involves creating an index that shows where human flourishing is and is not occurring.
Next year, scholars will gather once again to discuss the progress made on these resolutions and take more strides towards ensuring that all humans have the opportunity to flourish.