Father Paolo Benanti, a priest who advises the Catholic Church on artificial intelligence, says the biggest AI labs are using dramatic warnings about superintelligence to steer the conversation away from public oversight. In an interview with WIRED, he argued that when a small group of companies dictates the rules under which an industry operates, "this has a really clear name: a cartel."
Benanti is skeptical of proposals from within the industry, such as Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's call for mandatory third-party evaluations and a crackdown on distillation, or outright bans on recursive self-improvement. He is less interested in restricting development methods, which he fears could quash innovation, and more focused on establishing standards that keep AI under human control. He also notes the economic incentives at play, since major labs have backed calls for a slowdown while preparing to go public.
Benanti takes issue with reverent language about superintelligence, saying AI is not a divinity but statistical computation. He argues the hype over existential risk distracts from the ambitions laid out in Pope Leo's recent encyclical on artificial intelligence, which warned against technocratic logic and called for international collaboration rather than geopolitical or commercial dominance.
"The first thing is, we need to have brakes, and a wheel," Benanti said, meaning humans must retain significant control over the machine.