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(OSV News) — The viral internet commercial sounded real: the voice of Cardinal Carlos Aguiar Retes, archbishop of Mexico City, endorsing a miracle drug that had cured him of diabetes.
But the commercial — like the cure itself — was fake. As Desde La Fe, the archdiocese’s newspaper reported in January, fraudsters had made a “deepfake” to simulate the cardinal’s voice, using advanced software loosely categorized as artificial intelligence, or AI.
The criminal use of AI-generated content is among the most disturbing advances in digital technology. In June 2023, the FBI issued a warning about AI “deepfakes” that transform a real victim’s benign images into explicit “true-to-life” content to target him or her for harassment and sexual extortion. Sometimes the victims are minors. Other times the victims are non-consenting adults, including popular figures such as the singer-songwriter Taylor Swift.
Experts also note that technological developments with AI can bring profound changes for the good — but they emphasize the urgent need for applied Catholic ethics and social thought. The Vatican itself has made the topic a priority, with the Vatican’s Dicastery of Culture and Education and its Center for Digital Culture playing a lead role in bringing together business leaders, philosophers and Catholic thinkers to discuss the ethics of AI.
Catherine Moon, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Virginia’s Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, told OSV News the technologies are double-edged.
“The analogy to fire is probably a good one,” she said. “It can bring light and warmth or it can bring destruction and darkness.”
Continued below.
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But the commercial — like the cure itself — was fake. As Desde La Fe, the archdiocese’s newspaper reported in January, fraudsters had made a “deepfake” to simulate the cardinal’s voice, using advanced software loosely categorized as artificial intelligence, or AI.
The criminal use of AI-generated content is among the most disturbing advances in digital technology. In June 2023, the FBI issued a warning about AI “deepfakes” that transform a real victim’s benign images into explicit “true-to-life” content to target him or her for harassment and sexual extortion. Sometimes the victims are minors. Other times the victims are non-consenting adults, including popular figures such as the singer-songwriter Taylor Swift.
Experts also note that technological developments with AI can bring profound changes for the good — but they emphasize the urgent need for applied Catholic ethics and social thought. The Vatican itself has made the topic a priority, with the Vatican’s Dicastery of Culture and Education and its Center for Digital Culture playing a lead role in bringing together business leaders, philosophers and Catholic thinkers to discuss the ethics of AI.
Catherine Moon, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Virginia’s Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, told OSV News the technologies are double-edged.
“The analogy to fire is probably a good one,” she said. “It can bring light and warmth or it can bring destruction and darkness.”
Continued below.
Surprise! Catholic social teaching already has a lot to say about AI, experts say
Any response to AI can find a foundation in Catholic social teaching, famously emphasized in Pope Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical on capital and labor "Rerum Novarum."
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