As the Vatican hosts a conference exploring how technology is changing art, culture, and the human mind, organizers reflect on the need for prudence when approaching the creative boost that artificial intelligence offers humanity.
According to Dmitry Volkov, artificial intelligence is like a car: it enables extraordinary acceleration, but when we develop a fine car, especially a racing car, “we must pay close attention to creating highly effective and reliable brakes to prevent it from crashing into walls.”
The philosopher, technology entrepreneur, and founder of the International Center for Consciousness Studies (ICCS) uses this image to summarize the possibilities offered by the technology that is transforming our time.
The ICCS’ third annual conference is examining it in depth and asking the necessary—and sometimes uncomfortable—questions needed to analyse AI’s impact on humanity.
Is it truly creative?
The ICCS gathering, Creativity: Minds and Machines, began on Tuesday at Roma Tre University. It continues today at the Casina Pio IV in the Vatican, and will conclude on Thursday, first at the Pontifical Gregorian University and finally in the Capitoline Museums’ Hall of the Protomoteca.
The conference brought together philosophers, neuroscientists and leading international figures in artificial intelligence to discuss whether AI can truly be creative.
For now, according to Volkov, one thing is certain: AI can help human beings become more creative.
“I think it will stimulate human creativity,” he says. “Obviously, however, there are many ‘buts,’ many things of which we need to be aware.”
Hence the need to remain conscious and to develop those “brakes” without which accidents are inevitable.
A collective endeavour
Pietro Perconti, a philosopher and co-founder of the ICCS, believes that it is not “unreasonable to speak of artificial creativity.”
“Naturally, a long series of caveats must be adopted; we must be very prudent,” he says. “The type of creativity produced by machines is not the same kind of creativity that we are accustomed to considering as such. It is a different type of creativity that can be appreciated as a kind of collective endeavour, rather than as the product of the genius of an individual artist, as we typically tend to understand it in the West.”
Video production an example of AI’s benefits and dangers
Volkov recalls that “for many years, producing a video, making a film or creating a cartoon was something that only a very small number of people could actually do.”
Indeed, it required learning how to draw and how to animate images on a computer, whereas AI has now enabled thousands of people to create their own films or cartoons—in short, to express themselves.
The philosopher warns, however, that a by-product of what he calls an “explosion of creativity” is the emergence of deepfakes: manipulations of photographs, videos or images that cause harm to people.
Sycophantic behaviour
Artificial intelligence also tends to please the user, a tendency described as “sycophantic.”
“Sycophantic behaviour,” Volkov warns, “sometimes leads a person to receive rewards for their narcissism and for ideas that are not sufficiently grounded. This is an important characteristic of which we must be aware.”
It is a machine behaviour that can be mitigated: “The new models currently available are actually much more independent and autonomous.”
AI and consciousness
At this point, it is legitimate to ask whether AI is conscious or could become conscious.
Volkov’s position is rather nuanced: “In philosophy, we have a specific technical term for defining consciousness: we call it ‘qualia.’”
The term qualia, the plural of the Latin quale, refers to the qualitative aspects of conscious experiences.
They correspond to “a particular sensation, a subjective sensation, something that is experienced at this very moment. For example,” he explains, “seeing red. If I see red, it seems to me that I am seeing red; I am convinced that I am seeing red. This is one of the simple and basic qualia.”
Continuing his explanation, the philosopher reaches this personal conclusion: “I think the studies are still at too early a stage. In general, however, I believe that human beings are mechanistic systems and that we will also see similar phenomena in computers. Therefore, at some point, we will be able to see conscious AI and will have to learn how to manage it.”
Human person at the centre
As Perconti explains, the Vatican session has an ambitious objective: “To try to understand whether it is possible, and whether it makes sense, to imagine relationships between human beings and artificial companions—friendships, relationships involving assistance, and romantic relationships.”
The intellectuals gathered at the Vatican are asking to what extent these relationships might be productive and to what extent, instead, they should concern us.
In their discussions, they are keeping in mind the message of Pope Leo XIV’s Magnifica Humanitas: “What the Encyclical says—namely, that people must be at the centre—is not merely a religious requirement; it is a human requirement.”
Educating people for relationships
Perconti explains that they are guided precisely by “the central point of the Encyclical: pay attention to human beings; people are the most important thing.”
“Since our world is becoming a world of digital relationships, how is it possible to take this central humanistic concern into account in a world that is meanwhile becoming increasingly digitalized?” he asks.
According to the philosopher, education is the answer: “People need to be educated in their relationships with artificial intelligence, and this essentially means undertaking a public process of education.”
