According to the Catholic Press Agency of Austria, Pope Leo XIV has appointed theologian, philosopher, and social ethicist Prof. Dr. Peter G. Kirchschläger to serve a five-year term on the expert committee of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Integral Human Development.
As a result, Kirchschläger will be one of twelve members of the advisory body, which addresses key ethical and societal challenges. These include, among other things, development cooperation, migration, environmental protection, and humanitarian crises.
Peter G. Kirchschläger intends to place a special emphasis on the ethical regulation of artificial intelligence. He has already collaborated extensively with the Vatican on this topic in the past. Among his key demands are human rights-based global regulation of AI and the creation of an international agency for data-driven systems within the United Nations.
Kirchschläger emphasizes that technological progress must not be dictated by a handful of global corporations. Rather, he argues, artificial intelligence must benefit all people and be used responsibly in the spirit of human dignity, human rights, and global justice.
In addition to AI ethics, he plans to contribute his expertise in human and children’s rights, economic and financial ethics, responsible corporate governance, and development cooperation to the committee. He describes the appointment as an extraordinary honor and, at the same time, a great responsibility.
Peter G. Kirchschläger has been a full professor of theological ethics and director of the Institute for Social Ethics (ISE) at the University of Lucerne since 2017. Since 2023, he has also been a visiting professor at ETH Zurich and the ETH AI Center. As a keynote speaker, he addresses the major questions of the future at the intersection of artificial intelligence, ethics, leadership, economics, and society.