‘Do we understand truth anymore?’: Conference in Rome discusses distrust in age of AI

A dinner conference in Rome on Wednesday brought together clergy, business leaders, journalists, and scholars to discuss how to communicate the truth amid distrust in the age of artificial intelligence (AI).

The Acton Institute, a faith-based think tank promoting free markets and limited government, held the “Communicating Truth in an Age of AI” convivium: a conversation among representatives of Catholic media and secular academia about the challenges AI poses to the communications industry.

Andreas Thonhauser, vice president and chief global officer at EWTN, and Jenn Lindsay, a communications professor at Rome’s John Cabot University and CEO of So Fare Films, led the discussion.

Among those present was Yurash Andrii Vasyliovych, the Ukrainian ambassador to the Holy See.

Truth in the modern media era Among the topics considered at the conference was the challenge of distinguishing truthful news from false information. In his opening remarks, Thonhauser, who joined EWTN in 2021, described the challenge as “cutting through the noise.”

“In the age of AI, communication is truth, which is not so easy when we think about it, about how much noise is already out there, and AI is…