The Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria under the Leadership of Archbishop Matthew Manoso Ndagoso has called on families and the Federal Government to bridge the cap of communication taking cognizance of Artificial Intelligence and guiding against misinformation.
Speaking on Sunday at St Peter’s Catholic Church Sabon Tasha, the president Bishop Conference of Nigeria Archbishop Matthew Manoso Ndagoso who was represented by Director Communication Kaduna Archdiocese Revd. Fr. Kadiri Melchizedek said “this year’s communication week is preserving human voices and human faces this was announced by the holy father himself and it is a call and a reminder to all of us that in the midst of this digital interaction AI and all others we must try to maintain what is human that’s human connection.
Ndagoso said “that human interaction is very necessary and as you said this affects the family very greatly because the family is the building block of society and when there’s a problem from the family level it actually affects the society
“This is a call that even within our homes, we must make room for human communication and connection. It is actually very vital. We live in a world today where even within the family, communication is very poor. Between the father and the mother, between the parents and the children, even within siblings. So this is a reminder that what is human is what is authentic and not actually the child interaction, which we have to.”
Also speaking, the National Director of Social Communications- Very Revd. Fr. Umoh Nsikak Michael maintained that “Pope Leo choose this year’s topic in view of the topic we dealt with two years ago that was about artificial intelligence. We are beginning to notice that this technology of artificial intelligence, by extension all these our smartphone, people are beginning to use avatars.
Photoshopping of faces and whatever. So people are distorting faces on the digital space. And then when it comes to reality, in fact, you see some women, you cannot even recognize them again because of painting, makeups”
“This year’s theme, Preserving Human Faces and Voices is saying that we should take it easy, that our face is God’s signature. Every mark on our face and whatever tells our story. So we should be proud of our faces and avoid this unnecessary distortion of the face.
“When it comes to the voice too, we know that some people are able to clone people’s voices through artificial intelligence. You take somebody’s voice as sample, you clone it, and people use it to commit all forms of atrocities. So the church is just calling us to attention and caution to be careful of these negative sides or extremes.The church is saying that artificial intelligence is very good and the new media technology is very good but we must be careful that we don’t allow it to slip to the other side where it is negative
He maintained that “on the issue of insecurity, you will agree with me that the Catholic bishops of Nigeria have, as a body and as individuals in their dioceses, have been in the forefront, speaking to governments and all powers that be, calling the attention to this problem of insecurity. In about one decade now,
“There has hardly been any communique the Catholic bishops of Nigeria have released without calling government’s attention and governors’ attention and people in charge of security to the problem of insecurity. We just pray they listen