Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama of the Catholic Archdiocese of Abuja, has advised Nigerians against allowing Artificial Intelligence (AI) to replace the human person in the society.
Kaigama gave the advice in his sermon on Sunday, in commemoration of the 2024 World Communication Day, held at St Joseph Pastoral Area, Dakibiyu, Jabi, Abuja.
The archbishop said that rather than reject AI, the technology should be embraced and used to retain Nigeria’s shared humanity.
“we must not reject the new developments; but we must not embrace them in a manner that it will take away our humanity and reduce everything to machine and technology.
“Let us be careful in the use of technology, let us not become proud that we have all the answers and replace God. It is foolish to do so.
“We should be careful, even though everything God has created is good and God intends that those things he created should serve us.
“Let us not become proud and arrogant and tend to replace God with these things He Himself has created; let us not succumb to that temptation and that is the essence of the world communication Sunday,” he said.
Kaigama particularly advised the youths to ensure proper use of the social media by communicating what is good, honourable and noble at all times.
He further called on Nigerians to use the social media to preach peace and enduring love in their respective communities and beyond.
“In whatever we do, let us communicate love and peace in a manner that will bring progress and not to create confusion as we see during election.
“Let all our actions be inspired by ethics and morality; enough of politics riddled with corruption, do not exclude morality from politics, governace and from everything we do.
”Things must rotate around the principle of morality.
“I pray that God will help us in our country, guide our leaders to conduct the affairs of the nation with the fear of God,” the prelate prayed.
In his remarks, the Director of Communication of the archdiocese, Rev. Fr. Patrick Alumuku, advised against the use of AI as standard or tool to train children in the communities.
He said that though AI has many answers, it may not be able to give a human and emotional answer required to train the next generation.
The cleric said that AI should not be elevated to a point where it will replace human wisdom and reduce human beings to mere mathematical figures for algorithms.
“Let us use our heart in our relationship with others, our hearts is more important in the use of this great innovation known as AI,” he said. (NAN)