In an unsigned, front-page editorial in its December 30 edition, the Vatican newspaper said that this image by illustrator Filippo Sassoli “perfectly summarizes the meaning of a year that is about to end.”
“The dove of peace invites us to look upwards, towards that star that leads to Life and Truth,” according to L’Osservatore Romano. “But the man-machine, instead, stubbornly turns its gaze downwards, closed in on itself and its own selfishness.”
The editorial continued:
It is a machine with human features, increasingly human, with ever greater potential, almost without limits. And it looks (with astonishment?) at the being it holds in its hands: the dove of peace. Peace is in its hands. It can suffocate it or release it to realize its dream of hope.
Citing Pope Leo’s Message for the World Day of Peace, the Vatican newspaper added that while AI has had promising results in health care, there have also been “disturbing signs: let us think of its use in the military field.”