Tech giant Cisco sign’s Vatican pledge for ethical AI development

Cisco Systems, a global leader in digital communications technology, has now joined Microsoft and IBM in signing the Pontifical Academy for Life’s Rome Call for AI Ethics, committing to an ethical approach to artificial intelligence.

Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins met with Pope Francis privately April 24, prior to signing the Rome Call for AI Ethics, also called the Rome Call. The Rome Call aims for shared responsibility among various sectors to ensure digital and technological advancements, particularly AI, respect human dignity and benefit all.

“We are very pleased that Cisco has joined the Rome Call because it is a company that plays a crucial role as a technology partner for the adoption and implementation of artificial intelligence by offering expertise in infrastructure, security and protection of AI data and systems. From now on, we will look at how this can further grow to combine the already present corporate commitment with the ethical principles of the Rome Call,” said Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life and its RenAIssance Foundation.

“Today we know that AI is no longer a topic just for experts, and reflecting on the ethics of its development is more urgent than ever. This new signing of the Rome Call demonstrates this,” he said during an event where the CEO of Cisco System Inc. signed the Rome Call document already endorsed by entities such as Microsoft, IBM, FAO, universities, private corporations and NGOs.

Powering an inclusive future for all

Robbins acknowledged AI’s potential and challenges, emphasizing the company’s role in building networks and infrastructure critical to the AI revolution. He affirmed that the principles of the Rome Call align with Cisco’s belief in technology based on trust to foster an inclusive future. “AI is fundamentally changing our world – presenting vast opportunities, but also new challenges. For nearly 40 years Cisco has built the networks that connect people and organizations across the globe, and today we are building the critical infrastructure and security solutions that will power the AI revolution,” said Robbins. “The Rome Call principles align with Cisco’s core belief that technology must be built on a foundation of trust at the highest levels in order to power an inclusive future for all,” he said.

Father Paolo Benanti from the Pontifical Gregorian University who is also Scientific Director of the RenAIssance Foundation and member of the United Nations Advisory Body on Artificial Intelligence, underscored the importance of developing robust, unbiased AI data sets, enhancing AI skills, creating governance frameworks, and ensuring AI systems are transparent, accountable, and uphold human values. 

 “One of the key elements in addressing the transformations of AI is the enabling of its capabilities, which are rapidly advancing and transforming many sectors. Enabling AI capabilities in an ethical manner requires action in multiple directions: developing large, high-quality, unbiased data sets to train AI models; providing access to cyber infrastructure; building AI competencies; establishing governance frameworks to manage AI development; and providing AI systems that are transparent, accountable, and aligned with human values. Today’s Cisco’s signature of the Rome Call for AI Ethics is a step forward in this process,” Father Benanti said.

Pope Francis and the “Rome Call”

The genesis of the Rome Call starts just before the world locked down for the COVID-19 pandemic. In February 2020, the Pontifical Academy for Life organized a symposium entitled “RenAIssance: For a Human-centric Artificial Intelligence,” which ended with the Rome Call for AI Ethics, co-signed by industry leaders from Microsoft, IBM, and others. In April 2021, Pope Francis founded the RenAIssance Foundation, a Vatican nonprofit dedicated to fostering anthropological and ethical considerations of new technologies’ impact on human life.

Pope Francis devoted his annual peace message for this year to artificial intelligence, advocating for an international treaty to guarantee the ethical development and use of AI. “The unique capacity for moral judgment and ethical decision-making is more than a complex collection of algorithms, and that capacity cannot be reduced to programming a machine,” he wrote.

The pope also in his message for the 2024 World Day of Social Communications, focused on the theme “Artificial Intelligence and the Wisdom of the Heart: Towards a Fully Human Communication.”  Francis notes that “at this time in history, which risks becoming rich in technology and poor in humanity, our reflections must begin with the human heart.” The heart in the Bible, he said, is seen as “symbolizing integrity and unity, while also engaging our emotions, desires, and dreams.” Hence, the use of AI becomes “perverse when it distorts our relationship with others and with reality.”