Let’s Prevent AI “from creating a system of domination”: Vatican Official at Congress of Catholic Journalists in Africa

Accra, 17 August, 2025 / 11:38 PM

The Prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for Communication has called for the regulation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and invited participants in the Union of the African Catholic Press (UCAP) Congress taking place in Ghana’s capital city, Accra, to work towards having AI at the service of human values.

In his message read out during the opening ceremony of the August 10-17 UCAP Congress,  Dr. Paolo Ruffini said that the proposal to regulate AI aims to have technology serve humanity in truth and honesty, and guarantee the safeguarding human values.

“The question we are realistically asking ourselves is how algorithms, and the machines that process them, can serve mankind, in truth, knowledge, consciousness and beauty, and share these values,” Dr. Ruffini said in his message addressed to the UCAP Congress participants at Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA).

In response, the Vatican official said, “the answer lies in preventing algorithms and their processors from creating a system of domination that pulverizes everything, ignoring the true, the just and the beautiful.”

The Vatican official advocated for “a system that prevents the identification of responsibilities, which instead simulates emotions, and ends up weaving a web where individual uniqueness is sacrificed along with individual dignity.”

Perceived as a system of domination, Dr. Ruffini said, “AI is wrongly considered infallible, invulnerable, and omniscient - in contradiction even with the scientific presupposition that underpins it – that machine can break down complex cognitive functions into simple mechanistic components. We are at a crossroads.”

In his message that Mons. Janvier Yameogo read out, the Prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for Communication said that if the short-term impact of AI depends on who controls it, then the long-term impact depends on whether or not it can be controlled.

He explained, “Whether the development of artificial intelligence can help us to become more human or cause us to devalue our humanity and how; in what way will it make relationships between individuals stronger and truer, communities more cohesive; in what will it increase the loneliness of those who are already alone, further depriving each and every one of us of the warmth that only genuine communication can provide?”

With this, Dr. Ruffini said the “underlying question is not about machines but about people - the relationship between humans and algorithms. And it's not an abstract question. It is precisely about our lives, our freedom, and our free will.”

He further explained that “it concerns the power of those who control the calculation systems. It further concerns the relationship between those who do the calculations and those on whom the calculations are done as well as the calculation criteria.”

The control of AI, Dr. Ruffini said, “concerns the limit between what can be calculated (a number) and what cannot; because it is not a number but life, which is unique and is infinite.”

Amid all the uncertainty brought about by AI, the Vatican official said, “what we are being asked to do is to live our lives to the full, not mechanically and without fear of life's challenges and its gifts.”

“We are to read and tell history with the intelligence of the heart, with the wisdom of love, without confusing its means and ends, truth and lies, intuition and calculations. What we are being asked to do is to remain human. And to become more and more so,” he said.

Organized under the theme, “Balancing Technological Progress and the Preservation of Human Values in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (AI),” the August 10-17 Congress has brought together scholars, experts, policymakers, corporate leaders, and journalists from across the continent.

The Congress aims to examine how new media technologies and artificial intelligence are reshaping communication and influencing daily life. Discussions are to explore strategies for safeguarding ethics, dignity, and justice in media practice.

Deliberating on a broad range of issues, participants are to come up with recommendations to guide governments, media organizations, and society at large. Outcomes from the Congress are to shape UCAP’s future training programs and professional guidelines.

In his message, the Prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for Communication said he hopes the objective of the Congress as elaborated in the theme will be fulfilled.

For the Church in Africa, Dr. Ruffini said, “this continental Congress is also a privileged opportunity to bear witness to our faith in Jesus Christ, who creates unity in diversity.”

“I would like to wish that the work of the Congress will continue to run smoothly, whether at the level of discussions on current issues or reports on the activities of UCAP within the national entities, and naturally in the spirit of the Church Family of God,” he said.

The Vatican official implored, “May the spirit of mutual forgiveness, reconciliation, inclusion and participation nourish your efforts to meet the challenges and to choose the executives responsible for leading UCAP at continental level in order to always foster communion.”