{"id":14240,"date":"2026-05-29T19:38:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T14:08:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/a-catholic-solution-to-gender-bias-in-ai\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T19:38:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T14:08:19","slug":"a-catholic-solution-to-gender-bias-in-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/a-catholic-solution-to-gender-bias-in-ai\/","title":{"rendered":"A Catholic solution to gender bias in AI"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div itemprop=\"articleBody\">\n<p><iframe title=\"Everlit Audio Player\" src=\"https:\/\/everlit.audio\/embeds\/artl_eQjyeHdv4LP?ui_title_intro=Listen+now%3A&amp;client=wp&amp;client_version=3.1.5\" width=\"100%\" height=\"136px\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(RNS) \u2014 The widespread analyses of Pope Leo XIV\u2019s encyclical, \u201cMagnifica Humanitas,\u201d overlook one thing: Artificial intelligence is inherently male.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Most people think of AI as a tool to summarize information through what are called large language models. The problem: LLMs are trained by men, and most of the data and information available has been created by men. Most of the programmers teaching AI to \u201cthink\u201d are men. So, AI decision-making and prediction behaviors are essentially male.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">No wonder the pope has called for \u201cdisarmament\u201d of AI. Men go to war.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The world is a mess. Can AI help?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Maybe yes. Maybe no.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These are Pope Leo\u2019s answers in \u201c<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Magnifica Humanitas<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">,\u201d which he released on Monday (May 25) along with three cardinals, two female professors and Christopher Olah, co-founder of the AI giant Anthropic.<\/span><\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<hr\/>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Olah specializes in reverse engineering neural networks at Anthropic. That means he looks inside the machine, as it were, trying to understand how it learns, how it \u201cthinks,\u201d how it makes decisions. But almost everything he studies comes from the male point of view.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The male viewpoint dominates AI answers, AI algorithms, AI predictions and AI decisions from start to finish.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Would \u201cgender-neutral\u201d be any better?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">No.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If the trainers aim for complete removal of gender, if gender drops from the equation, and everything entered into AI machines is nonbinary, AI\u2019s responses and decisions are still likely male-oriented, since the general default in language is male.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_4116107\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"width: 750px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-4116107\" src=\"https:\/\/religionnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/webRNS-Synod-Vatican2-102523.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"750\" height=\"500\" srcset=\"https:\/\/religionnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/webRNS-Synod-Vatican2-102523.jpg 1600w, https:\/\/religionnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/webRNS-Synod-Vatican2-102523-427x285.jpg 427w, https:\/\/religionnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/webRNS-Synod-Vatican2-102523-807x538.jpg 807w, https:\/\/religionnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/webRNS-Synod-Vatican2-102523-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/religionnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/webRNS-Synod-Vatican2-102523-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/religionnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/webRNS-Synod-Vatican2-102523-624x416.jpg 624w, https:\/\/religionnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/webRNS-Synod-Vatican2-102523-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/religionnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/webRNS-Synod-Vatican2-102523-600x400.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px\"\/> <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text edd-enabled\"><span class=\"caption\">Participants of the 16th General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops attend a daily session in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, Oct. 16, 2023. (AP Photo\/Domenico Stinellis)<\/span><span class=\"credit\"\/><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, is there a solution? Where can it be found?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Suggestion: synodality and synodal reciprocity. \u201cReciprocity\u201d is a word threaded throughout the final document of the years-long (and continuing) Synod on Synodality, begun by Pope Francis in 2021. Reciprocity requires the views of males and of females to be positively, if not equally, considered. It is a matter of epistemology \u2014 of how we know and understand. Humans are gendered, embodied beings and possess different outlooks. Reciprocity attempts to merge the outlooks. The concept of \u201creciprocity\u201d denies the epistemological error that sees the male and female as existing and defined only in opposition to each other. It also argues that the combination of viewpoints is more likely to arrive at a balanced answer to whatever question arises.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Can synodality survive in the Catholic Church, and can AI be useful, when both the church and AI default to a male point of view? If the search is for truth, only reciprocity can produce balanced, some would argue correct, questions and answers.<\/span><\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<hr\/>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As the American poet E.E. Cummings once wrote, \u201cAlways the more beautiful answer, who asks the more beautiful question.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pope Leo is asking the right questions. He wrote, \u201cwhen AI systems present themselves as neutral and objective, they end up reflecting and reinforcing the stereotypes or ideological bias of their designers and developers.\u201d (#102)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One can only hope that the views of women will be added to the equation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><!-- CONTENT END 1 -->\n        <\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/religionnews.com\/2026\/05\/29\/a-catholic-solution-to-gender-bias-in-ai\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(RNS) \u2014 The widespread analyses of Pope Leo XIV\u2019s encyclical, \u201cMagnifica Humanitas,\u201d overlook one thing: Artificial intelligence is inherently male.\u00a0 Most people think of AI as a tool to summarize information through what are called large language models. The problem: LLMs are trained by men, and most of the data and information available has been [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14241,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}