World Social Communications Day
Every year on January 24, the feast day of St. Francis de Sales, patron saint of writers and journalists, the pope sends a message on the World Social Communications Day. We now share with you some information on this celebration.
World Day of Social Communications Day is an annual celebration that reflects on the opportunities and challenges the Church faces in communicating the Gospel using social communication channels.[1] The theme chosen by Pope Francis for this years’ 58th World Communications Day is “Artificial Intelligence and the Wisdom of the Heart: Towards a Fully Human Communication “.[2] Over the years, the pope has emphasized the importance of communication as a means of bringing people together. For that reason, in previous messages he has addressed different elements of human communication and the importance of some verbs and expressions like “come, see”, “Listen” and “to speak from the heart” to achieve effective communication.[3]
We know that artificial intelligence will affect, and it is already affecting, human beings in concrete ways, and the number of jobs now being replaced by non-human intelligence is just one proof for it. The future is not promising when we consider that today public discourse is no longer being voiced only by specific actors and organizations. It is our obligation to direct our attention to these other “artificial voices” that obscure public opinion and contribute to a “large-scale system of disinformation.”[4] For instance, “bots” active on social networks can swing voters at elections or manipulate financial markets[5].
In this context, the value of the voice of those who have chosen religious life must be highlighted and their contribution to society reaffirmed. Religious persons must be prepared to discriminate and evaluate different discourses, both from human and artificial source. This is especially true if we consider that from a religious perspective the human person is the center of everything and that, frequently, religious men and women give voice to the voiceless. And so, to reduce “the risks of unsupervised social communication”,[6] members of religious life should be able to identify discourses that may harm people, and especially if these discourses might negatively affect the neediest among us.
For that reason, self-learning and training programs focusing on technology and social media, including AI, have become vital. Religious and lay persons must take this task seriously, following Pope Francis’s invitation: “All of us are responsible for the communications we make, for the information we share, for the control that we can exert over fake news by exposing it. All of us are to be witnesses of the truth: to go, to see and to share.”[7]
[1] What is World Communications Day? https://www.catholicireland.net/what-is-world-communications-day/
[2] Pope’s Communications Day message: AI can never replace wisdom of human heart.
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2024-01/pope-message-world-day-social-communications-ai.html
[3] Message of His Holiness Pope Francis for the 57th World Communications Day.
[4] Pope’s Communications Day message: AI can never replace wisdom of human heart.
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2024-01/pope-message-world-day-social-communications-ai.html
[5] What is a social media bot ? https://www.cloudflare.com/en-ca/learning/bots/what-is-a-social-media-bot/
[6] Message of His Holiness Pope Francis for the 55th World Communications Day. https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/es/messages/communications/documents/papa-francesco_20210123_messaggio-comunicazioni-sociali.html
[7]Ibid.