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Pope Francis is first pope to address G7 summit, meets with Biden, world leaders
Pope Francis, the first pope to attend a G7 summit, urged the leaders of the world’s wealthy democracies Friday to keep human dignity foremost in developing and using artificial intelligence, warning that the technology risks turning human relations into mere algorithms.
LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP via Getty Images
Francis was invited by Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, the host of the summit, to address a special session on the perils and promises of AI. He offered an ethical take on an issue that is increasingly on the agenda of international, governmental and corporate board summits.
The pope said politicians must take the lead in making sure AI remains human-centric, so decisions about when to use weapons — or even tools that are less lethal — always remain made by humans and not machines.
“We would condemn humanity to a future without hope if we took away people’s ability to make decisions about themselves and their lives, by dooming them to depend on the choices of machines,” he said. “We need to ensure and safeguard a space for proper human control over the choices made by artificial intelligence programs: Human dignity itself depends on it.”
The spread of AI and migration were two of the major topics discussed by world leaders at the summit. After the session, the pope, in a wheelchair and white robes, met separately with the G7 leaders and was greeted with a round of applause, and he spoke with them for about 25 minutes.
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NASA researchers combined years of data and new imaging techniques to learn more about a “tipped over” black hole that is moving in an unexpected way.
The black hole is located in a galaxy called NGC 5084. Researchers have been aware of the galaxy for years, NASA said in a news release.
New analysis techniques developed at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California helped researchers see four long plumes of plasma emanating from the galaxy. Most galaxies don’t have plumes, and when they do, only one or two are present. The plumes suggested the galaxy might house a supermassive black hole, NASA said. Spotting both pairs, which formed an “X” shape, led researchers to focus more on the area.
Using archived data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array Telescope based in Chile, researchers found that the galaxy also had a “small, dusty inner disk” rotating at the center of the galaxy, again suggesting a black hole there. Even more surprisingly, both the disk and black hole were rotating at a 90-degree angle relative to the rest of the galaxy, meaning both features are essentially “lying on their sides,” NASA said.
NASA/STScI, M. A. Malkan, B. Boizelle, A.S. Borlaff. HST WFPC2, WFC3/IR/UVIS.
“It was like seeing a crime scene with multiple types of light,” said research scientist Alejandro Serrano Borlaff, who will also publish a paper about the discovery, in the news release. “Putting all the pictures together revealed that NGC 5084 has changed a lot in its recent past.”
It’s not clear what caused the change in the galaxy. It may have collided with another galaxy and formed a chimney of superheated gas, creating the X-shaped plasma plumes. Further research will have to be conducted to learn more about the circumstances.
“Detecting two pairs of X-ray plumes in one galaxy is exceptional,” said Pamela Marcum, an astrophysicist at Ames and co-author on the discovery, in the news release. “The combination of their unusual, cross-shaped structure and the ‘tipped-over,’ dusty disk gives us unique insights into this galaxy’s history.”