The annual event started with a thanksgiving Mass celebrated by His lordship, Bishop Most Revd Dr Peter Odetoyinbo. His sermon centered on this year's theme, "Artificial Intelligence and the Wisdom of the Heart: Towards a Fully Human Communication."
He reminded Catholic media practitioners of the mandate
from the Holy Father and church, urging them to make good use of technological
advancement of today's world of artificial intelligence to propagate man’s
co-creating nature without losing the wisdom of the heart.
Bishop Odetoyinbo, commemorated Catholic media men and
women in the diocese for their works and reemphasized the importance of the media in
the society in building a fully human communication.
Immediately after the Mass, a symposium was held.
It was moderated by Mr Oluwafemi Adelodun, an IT expert
and a principal officer of the West African Examination Council WAEC, Lagos
Head Office who defined Artificial Intelligence as a development of computer
systems able to perform tasks normally performed by humans.
He asserted parents moral obligation and responsibility
to their children’s upbringing, describing it as the wisdom of the heart in a
world where people are interested in short cuts to success and solving
problems.
The director of Social Communication of the diocese, Rev
Fr Greg Fadele, dissected the message of the Holy Father, the Pope on this
year's theme, saying the church welcomes AI as part of the tools for
acculturation.
He said, the Holy Father raised deep questions about the
nature of human beings, and the future of ‘homo sapiens’ in the age of
artificial intelligence? Intentionality
and Finality.
How can we remain
fully human and guide artificial
intelligence to serve a good purpose?
Theological anthological and ethical question. Bearing in that there
are technical, scientific and political problems with artificial intelligence
that can only be resolved by starting from our humanity.
Humans/machines The concern of
the church
Pope Francis says: “… Wisdom cannot be sought from
machines. Although the term “artificial intelligence” has now supplanted the
more correct term, “machine
learning”, used in scientific literature, the very use of the word
“intelligence” can prove misleading. No doubt, machines possess a greater
capacity than human beings for storing and correlating data, but human beings
alone are capable of making sense of that data.” - 2024 World Communication Day
message
Magisterium AI (M.Ai) -
created by a U.S.-based company ‘Longbeard’, and aims to make Catholic insight
and Church teaching available worldwide.
Provides a growing dataset of Church documents, making
the Church’s teachings Catholic doctrine, teachings, and Canon law more
accessible.
It can answer questions on Church teaching, practices,
and other topics, explaining complex theological concepts in simple
language.
It can be downloaded on both android devices and
iPhone.
The difference between Magisterium AI and ChatGPT is that
it is trained on a private database of only Church documents, and therefore
less likely to likely to give guess answers.
At the moment, it is available in 10 languages including
English, French and Spanish, and currently used in 125 countries.
All media technologies are gifts from God, and the Church
must always take advantage of it for her mission.
Catholics need to engage this app to aid the work of
evangelization particularly in the areas of formation like catechesis,
proclamation and even spirituality.
In the religious sphere, today we have robot priests and
monks:
BlessU-2: The Robot Priest in
Germany to bless;
Mindar: The Robotic Buddhist
Priest to teach and preach;
Pepper: The Robot Monk developed
in Japan to perform funeral rituals.
The theological anthropological
questions: Can machines truly bless? Are machines
anointed? How far can machines replace human beings?
We must adopt a
spiritual way of viewing reality, by recovering the wisdom of the heart:
In the Bible, the heart is the inward place of our
encounter with God. It is from the human heart that evil intentions come (Mk.
7:21): Our reflections must begin with the human heart.
We must go back to the question of who we are as people
created in the image of God (Imago Dei-created in image and likeness of God)
(Gen 1:27)
Pattern of Development/Transformation: avoiding
becoming rich in technology and poor in humanity.
Rm 12:2 “Do not be conformed to this world, but be
transformed by the renewing of the minds so that you may discern for yourselves
what is the will of God; what is good and perfect.
d) The need to confront and interpret the newness of our
technological innovation with the wisdom of the heart and rediscover the path
to a fully human communication. Machine can not control us.
Interpreting reality with God’s
eyes,
in order to see their connections with divine plan and to uncover their real
meaning. (Eyes of faith – 2 Cor. 5:7). Guided by faith and not by sight, we are
full of confidence.
It enables us to integrate our decisions and their
consequences, past and our future, individuality and our membership within a
larger community. (Homo
Communicans-being in relationship with God and one another)
Reviewing AI with openness but also with sensitivity to everything that is destructive and inhumane therein.
He gave an example of the Church’s Magisterium AI, an app
that provides answers to any question about the Catholic Church.
He concluded by saying that man should not reduce humans
to data and urged media practitioners to uphold the truth at all times. Avoid
the exaggerated reduction of human thinking/intelligence to mechanical process.
Also, he advised against counter disinformation, uphold the Truth and act as Professionals.
Lastly, he admonished journalists not be imprisoned in an “Echo Chamber” (believing only the opinions that coincide with one’s own).
Mr Peter Arabomen, an IT expert withFidelity explained
that Artificial Intelligence is a programme designed to perform specific tasks,
noting that anything outside the written programme was impossible for it.
He said AI is classified into three main types, Narrow
AI, General AI, and Super AI. "Each type of AI has its unique
characteristics, capabilities, and limitations," Arabomen explained.
He concluded his speech with the answers a leading AI
expert, Kai Fu Lee, gave when asked when artificial intelligence would be
completely perfect like humans.
Arabomen said, "maybe in the next ten to fifteen
years, maybe never."
The secretary of the National Union of Journalists, Ogun State chapter, Comrade Bunmi Adigun wondered why journalists and media men were very few at the event, which he described as being "so packed with immense sources of information."
Dr Malaolu, owner of Rock FM, commended the diocese for a
fantastic outing, saying that the event was one he looks forward to every year.
At the end of the symposium, Chief John Ajayi thanked the
Bishop, Most Revd Dr Peter Odetoyinbo for honouring CAMPAN with his presence
amiss his busy schedule. He also thanked all the invited speakers and guests
for making this year’s event a resounding success. He did not leave the
Director of Social Communication of Catholic Diocese of Abeokuta out for
organizing yet another wonderful event. Noting that the His Lordship Odetoyinbo
emphasized that the importance of the message Pope as the centre of the year’s
cerebration.
Finally, Ajayi promised the Diocesan President of the
Catholic Youth Organization of Nigeria to foster a cordial relationship between Rock City FM and the
organisaiton.