On January 1, 2024, Italy assumed the Presidency of the G7, a historic responsibility at a particularly complex time. The challenges the G7 is being called upon to address are of strategic importance for both our present and our future. Over the course of this year, 21 ministerial meetings will be held, some of which have already taken place in these first months of 2024 while others will be held throughout the rest of the year. The main event will be the Leaders’ Summit on 13-15 June, to be held at Borgo Egnazia in Italy’s stunning Apulia Region.

The Italian Presidency has included many issues on the agenda. The G7 will confirm its support for Ukraine, and will continue to work to achieve a just and lasting peace. We will address the conflict in the Middle East, working to prevent an escalation and, also here, to restore peace, stability and security throughout the region. We will address the great challenges of our time, from the climate-energy nexus through to food security.

Together we will lay the foundations to build a new and mutually beneficial relationship of equals with developing nations and emerging economies, and in particular with the African continent. We will also focus on migration issues, with the aim of combating human trafficking networks and laying the foundations to guarantee the right not to have to emigrate.

However, the G7 will also address an issue that many, with good reason, consider to be the greatest anthropological challenge of our time: the advent of artificial intelligence. This technology can create great opportunities but also brings huge risks, as well as inevitably affecting global balances. Our commitment is to develop governance mechanisms to ensure that artificial intelligence is both human-centred and human-controlled, in other words that it prioritises people and has people as its ultimate goal.

None of us can think of facing this challenge alone, and I believe it is crucial to harness the best ethical and intellectual reflections being developed in this field. I am thinking for example of the path embarked upon by the Holy See in 2020 with the “Rome Call for AI Ethics”, a path leading to the practical application of the concept of algorethics, i.e. giving ethics to algorithms.

The Italian Presidency of the G7 intends to make the most of this path supported by the Holy See and to bring it to the attention of the other leaders at the Apulia Summit. This is why I am honoured to announce today that Pope Francis will be attending the G7 working session dedicated precisely to artificial intelligence. I wish to sincerely thank the Holy Father for accepting Italy’s invitation. His presence brings prestige to our nation and to the entire Group of Seven.

This is the first time in history that a Pontiff will participate in the work of the G7. The Holy Father will attend the Outreach session, which is the session that is also open to other invited countries and not just the members of the G7. I am convinced that the presence of His Holiness will make a decisive contribution to defining a regulatory, ethical and cultural framework for artificial intelligence, because this field, the present and the future of this technology will be another test of our ability, the ability of the international community to do what another Pope, Saint John Paul II, talked about in his famous speech to the United Nations on October 2, 1979.

“Political activity, whether national or international, comes from man, is exercised by man and is for man”. This will always be our commitment and our path.

[Courtesy translation]