The Vatican named Demis Hassabis, the head of Google DeepMind, to its scientific academy on Friday, as Pope Francis aims to influence the technology’s future development.
The 47-year-old Briton was named to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences with physicists Andrea Ghez and Didier Queloz, who have won Nobel prizes.
Founded in 1603, the academy is a Vatican institution that studies science, technology, medical ethics, and philosophy. Its members are not picked for religious reasons.
Pope Francis, 87, issued a six-page speech in December warning of the dangers of AI and advocating for a global treaty to ensure the technology is used ethically.
Hassabis established DeepMind as a start-up in London in 2010.
Four years later, it was acquired by US tech behemoth Google, which last year merged it with Google Research’s Brain section to create Google DeepMind.