Religious leaders gather in Istanbul to tackle global debt, AI ethics

Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I promoted interreligious dialogue in a speech in front of dozens of global religious figures on Tuesday.

The spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians spoke during the opening ceremony of the Religions for Peace world council in Istanbul.

Founded in 1970, Religions for Peace is an international organisation of faith leaders dedicated to promoting world peace.

The Istanbul meeting was scheduled to focus on the global debt crisis and on promoting the "ethical development" of artificial intelligence, according to a press release.

Bartholomew talked about "a crisis of modernity" that he described as "tangible reality" examplified by two "profoundly related phenomena that haunt the global community: the unliftable weight of global debt and the uncontrolled emergence of artificial intelligence."

"These are not simply technical problems that demand technocratic solutions. They are the symptoms of a deep spiritual pathology, the phantoms that the earthly city gives birth to when it attempts to build itself in God’s absence", he said.

Bartholomew I is considered first among equals among Eastern Orthodox patriarchs, which gives him prominence but not the power of a Catholic pope.

He oversees Greek Orthodox and some other jurisdictions, although large portions of the Eastern Orthodox world are self-governing under their own patriarchs.