Pope's AI adviser warns Australia's copyright changes risk 'new form of colonialism'

Australia risks reviving a "new form of colonialism" if it allows AI companies to train on copyrighted work without permission and send profits offshore, warned an influential AI adviser to the Vatican. 

Asked about Australia's consideration of copyright changes to attract AI training, Father Paolo Benanti compared the risk with Europe's history of taking resources from other countries and profiting from them elsewhere.

"You go, you take resources, and you monetise it outside the place where the resources [were]," he said.

He said Australian writing could become another resource used by foreign companies, with the money and tax revenue ending up overseas.

“Is it ... a new form of colonialism from foreign power that could ... exploit from the resources and monetise it outside of the place where they are taken?" he asked.

Those were questions he said he would ask before voting on such a change.

Last month, the ABC reported that the Attorney-General's department was quietly consulting on changes that would mean AI companies could train on copyrighted content unless its owner had opted out.

In June Attorney-General Michelle Rowland told 7.30: "This government has repeatedly said that there are no plans to weaken copyright protections when it comes to AI."

Earlier this week, the federal parliament's AI committee took the unusual step of pre-empting its own process to write a letter that urged reforms to pave the way for AI training.

Father Benanti praised Australia's efforts to regulate social media and AI when he met Prime Minister Anthony Albanese last week, and told 7.30 other countries should follow Australia's lead in reining in tech companies with policies like the teen social media ban.

On his visit to Australia as a guest of the Italian Embassy, he described the country as being at the "foremost frontier" and defended it against aspersions about the effectiveness of laws like the social media minimum age.

He said that the essential democratic principle was that "no one should be above the law".

That included overseas social media companies, which he said could rely on protections in their home countries to avoid other governments' rules.

He said Australia's first steps were important, and hoped other countries would follow.

Working together would give governments more power to make technology companies comply with the rules in countries where they wanted to do business, he said.

'We need a brain helmet'

Father Benanti studied engineering before becoming a Franciscan friar and a professor specialising in the ethics of technology. He advised Pope Francis on artificial intelligence and now advises his successor, Pope Leo.

In May, Pope Leo presented his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, a major papal letter sharing his teachings about humanity in the age of AI.

The landmark document made global headlines for criticising autonomous weapons, as well as algorithms that could deny people access to healthcare, employment or security.

Father Benanti said the encyclical resonated beyond the Catholic Church's followers because it addressed moral questions they were already asking about how technology could change their lives.

He said its appeal came from keeping those questions open for public debate and allowing society to shape how AI is governed.

Father Benanti's concerns about AI extend to the emotional attachments people can form with the technology.

He is concerned that companies exploit loneliness and romantic attachment to their products to make money from people's emotions.

"Those are not neutral things, but are things that are designed by someone," he said.

The question he said, was whether these products could operate without laws to protect the most vulnerable people.

Asked about protecting children, he compared the adoption of AI and smartphones by minors to his experience with riding motorised scooters as a child.

When he was old enough he was given a small vehicle rather than a powerful model that could kill him.

He said smartphones put the same device in the hands of children and adults, without being tailored to children's capabilities.

"Probably we need a brain helmet," he said.

Business versus faith

Father Benanti believes tech companies have been courting religious leaders to attempt to protect their business interests.

He's been part of meetings with leaders of top tech companies held at company locations, rather than at the Vatican.

Their purpose, he said, "was not because they would like to talk about faith".

"There are politicians, there are religious leaders, there are scientists and things like that," he said. 

"They don't want to have leaders against them that can move the people.

Father Benanti said these leaders tried to persuade them of their own beliefs — that their work was bringing humanity close to an extraordinary moment in history, and even the possibility that AI could be conscious.

Asked whether he found the pitch compelling, his answer was blunt. 

"Not at all."

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