Centesimus Annus Pro-Pontifice Foundation
Vatican City
International Convention: 20-22 June 2024
Institutional meetings
8.30 Holy Mass
9.30 Meeting with the Ecclesiastical Counsellors
10.30 Meeting with the Scientific Committee Board
11.45 Meeting with the Advisory Board Committee Board
13.00 Lunch
2024 GENERAL ASSEMBLY
Centesimus in action for the application of Fratelli Tutti
THURSDAY, JUNE 20th 2024
14.40 Opening of the General Assembly
14.40 – 14.50 Introduction. Prof. Anna Maria Maria Tarantola, CAPPF Chairwoman
14.50 – 15.10 H.E. Giordano Piccinotti, S.D.B. Presidente APSA
15.10 -15.30 CAPPF 2023 Financial Statement and Mission Report presentation, Oliver Galea, Secretary General
15.30 – 17.30 Presentation of initiatives by the CAPPF local groups
Moderator Prof. Giovanni Marseguerra, Coordinator, CAPPF Scientific Committee and Vice-Rector
for Academic programs, Catholic University of Sacred Heart, Milan, Italy
15.30 – 16.10 1st ROUND TABLE
16.10 – 16.50 2nd ROUND TABLE
16.50 – 17.30 3rd ROUND TABLE
17.30 – 18.10 4th ROUND TABLE
18.10 – 18.30 ANNOUNCEMENT OF A NEW BOARD DIRECTOR ELECTED BY THE MEMBERS
18.30 – 19.15 INTERMEZZO MUSICALE
2024 International Conference
21st – 22nd June 2024
Vatican City
Generative Artificial Intelligence and Technocratic paradigm:
how to promote the wellbeing of humanity, care for nature
and a world of peace
Abstract
The 2024 CAPPF International Conference aims at considering benefits and problems connected to the fast and extensive evolution of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Specifically, the Conference is devoted to analyze how the AI and in particular the recent evolution of Generative AI (AIGen) can (and should) be both developed and used for the wealth of persons and environment, moving beyond the so damaging and destructive
technocratic paradigm, and promoting instead a fruitful interaction of natural systems with social systems within the integral ecology paradigm.
In 2015, with Laudato Sì (LS), Pope Francis launched a warning to the world on the urgent need of care for creation as a central moral obligation. His groundbreaking encyclical brings together the call to protect the environment and to defend the “least of these” through an integral ecology that challenges all of us to action.
He moved from observing how the world, both the natural one and the human and social one, was seriously ill, and that the disease was so pervasive to put the very survival of humanity at risk. The Pope identified the root of the problem in the human behavior and particularly in an economic system incapable of functioning and, more precisely, in the connection between the technocratic paradigm and the spasmodic search for
speculative profit, that is in the short or very short term (see LS, n. 109). The connection between the technocratic paradigm and the search for profit is then the origin of the throwaway culture: what is considered worthless is thrown away because it is no longer capable of producing profit, regardless of its
intrinsic value as a creature or human being.
Eight years later, his Apostolic Exhortation Laudate Deum Pope Francis reaffirms with even greater force the fundamental messages of Laudato Sì and emphasizes the need for a profound revision of our life and business models, of the relationship between science, innovation, economy and society, of individual aspirations.
Pope Francis must reluctantly recognize that the reaction to his heartfelt concerns for the care of our common home has been too timid and inconsistent: “the world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point” (LD, n.2). He once again criticizes the “technocratic paradigm”, which in these eight years has experienced “a new advancement”, based on an “ideology underlying an obsession: to increase human power beyond anything imaginable, before which nonhuman reality is a mere resource at its disposal. Everything that exists ceases to be a gift for which we should be thankful, esteem and cherish, and instead becomes a slave, prey to any whim of the human mind and its capacities.” (LD, n. 22).
The point is not the rejection of technology but rather the use of technologies for the common good. From this perspective, the recent fast progress of artificial intelligence poses epochal challenges: “Artificial intelligence and recent technological developments are based on the idea of a limitless human being, whose capabilities and possibilities could be extended infinitely thanks to technology. Thus, the technocratic paradigm monstrously feeds on itself” (LD n. 21). And at no. 23 of the Apostolic Exhortation, Pope Francis has an expression of extraordinary incisiveness: “It gives shudders to realize that the capabilities expanded by technology give those who hold the knowledge and above all the economic power to exploit it an impressive dominion over the whole of the genre human and the entire world. Never has humanity had so much power over itself and nothing guarantees that it will use it well, especially if we consider the way in which it is using it” (LD, n. 23).
In the light of Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation, the International Conference therefore aims to analyze how GenAI should evolve and how it should be guided to avoid further exclusion of the most fragile people and further damage to planet earth, and it should instead be an instrument of integration between increasingly more interconnected worlds, avoiding growing inequalities.
FRIDAY, JUNE 21st 2024
9:00 a.m. Meditation by H.E. Archbishop Claudio M. Celli, CAPPF International Ecclesiastical Counsellor
9.30 – 10.00 Conference Opening
Addresses by:
Anna Maria Tarantola, Chairwoman of CAPPF
Giovanni Marseguerra, Coordinator, CAPPF Scientific Committee and Vice-Rector for Academic programs, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano, Italy
10.00 – 11.40 SESSION 1 – The recent evolution of GenAI: benefits, risks, problems
10.00 – 10.20 Keynote speech – Roberto Viola, General Director DG Connect European Commission
10.20 – 11.10 ROUND TABLE
Jean-Pierre Casey – Coordinator CAPPF UK (moderator)
Participants:
1. Xavier Vilasis-Cardona, Full professor at la Salle, Universitat Ramon Llull and Vice-Dean for the Doctoral School
2. Schulte Markus, Head of Cabinet – Cabinet of Commissioner Iliana Ivanova, Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth
3. Sofia Ranchordas, Full Professor of Administrative Law at Tilburg Law and Professor of Law, Innovation, and Sustainability at LUISS Guido Carli
4. Katharina Schüller, Expert in statistics, data literacy and AI ethics, and CEO of Stat-up GmbH, Munich
11.10 – 11.40 Questions from the floor
11.40 – 12.10 Coffee break
12.10 – 13.50 SESSION 2 – The impact of GenAI on economy, environment, society and peace: CST as a Compass for Our Digitalized Word
12.10 – 12.30 Keynote speech – Maximo Ibarra, CEO of Engineering Ingegneria Informatica
12.30 – 13.20 ROUND TABLE
Danielle Morin – Coordinator CAPPF Canada (moderator)
Participants:
1. Andrea Vicini, Chairperson of the Boston College Theology Department, Michael P. Walsh Professor of Bioethics, Professor of Theological Ethics, Professor Ordinarius
2. Valeria Sandei, Founder and Chief Executive Officer & Director at Almawave SpA, Chairman at Almawave USA, Inc., Chairman of Almawave do Brasil Ltda
3. Ivana Bartoletti, Global Chief Privacy & AI Governance Officer, Wipro and Visiting Cybersecurity & Privacy executive Fellow, Pamplin Business School, Virginia Tech
4. Oliver Roethig, Regional Secretary UNI Europa The European Services Workers Union
13.10-13.50 Questions from the floor
13.50 – 15.00 Light lunch
15.00 – 16.40 SESSION 3 – Can innovation activities be limited? The links between technology and human development and the meaning of progress.
15.00 – 15.20 Keynote speech – Gianmario Verona President of the Supervisory Board of the Human Technopole Foundation since July 2022. Rector of Bocconi University (2016-2022), Professor of Management Bocconi University
15.20 -15.40 Keynote speech – Paolo Benanti, Theologian, Professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome
15.40 – 16.30 ROUND TABLE
Rowena McNally – Coordinator CAPPF Australia (moderator)
Participants:
1. William Hasselberger Associate Professor at the Institute for Political Studies (IEP) of the
Catholic University of Portugal (UCP), and the Director of the Digital Ethics Laboratory (LED)
at UCP
2. Vincenzo Valentini, Professor of Radiotherapy and Professor of the Department of
Radiological and Hematological Sciences Unicatt
3. Silvia Candiani, Vice President Telco and Media at Microsoft
4. TBC
16.30 – 17.00 Questions from the floor
17.00 – 17.20 Final remarks: H.E. Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi
17.30 End of Conference
20.00 Social Dinner
SATURDAY, JUNE 22nd 2024
8.15 a.m. Meeting Point: Petriano Gate Entrance, Piazza Sant’Uffizio
9.00 a.m. Holy Mass celebrated by H. E. Cardinal Mauro Gambetti O.F.M. Conv., Basilica of St. Peter, Altare della Cattedra
10.00 a.m. Private Audience with the Holy Father, Palazzi Apostolici
11.30 a.m. Address of H. E. Pietro Cardinal Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State, Palazzi Apostolic
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