At the AI Ethics for Peace: World Religions commit to the Rome Call event, IBM reaffirms its commitment and leadership to the Rome Call for AI Ethics. Hosted by the Vatican’s RenAIssance Foundation, in collaboration with the Pontifical Academy of Life, Religions for Peace Japan, Abu Dhabi Forum for Peace of the United Arab Emirates, and the Commission for Interreligious Relations of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, this latest gathering for the Rome Call welcomes the signature of Eastern religious leaders to shape technological innovation to support the advancement of humanity and inspire peaceful collaboration and global unity for the ethical development of AI, the focus of the document.

This interfaith event is part of a series of Rome Call milestones in which IBM has played a significant role: from being one of the first signatories of the Call in February 2020 to leading the Rome Call for AI Ethics Global University Summit, hosted by the University of Notre Dame and attended by 40 academic institutions in 2022, to the signing of the Call by three Abrahamic religions-Christianity, Judaism and Islam-in 2023.

All together for the ethics

“AI is a technology that has implications in every country, sector and value system, and its benefits should impact all of humanity. It is with great pride that IBM once again renews its commitment to the Rome Call for AI Ethics, which now includes the participation of new like-minded Eastern religious leaders,” said Darío Gil, Senior Vice President and Director of Research at IBM. “Keeping our commitments is critically important, and through initiatives like the Rome Call for AI Ethics and the AI Alliance, we are uniting developers, researchers, industry leaders and advocates to transparently advance responsible AI rooted in open innovation.”

A longtime supporter of ethical AI development, IBM has partnered with organizations worldwide to ensure that the most potent technologies- such as AI- are created responsibly and ethically from the start. In 2018, IBM unveiled its Principles for Trust and Transparency and was among the first companies to create an AI Ethics Council as a tool for internal governance of AI ethics, involving processes, tools, guidelines, training, and risk assessment to oversee the company’s AI development and use practices, as well as having signed partnerships with many stakeholders in AI to advance it in a practical, collaborative, and inclusive environment.

Differentiated approach to the development of new AI

IBM’s approach to AI ethics is pervasive throughout the company, including in products and platforms such as Watsonx and IBM’s AI and data governance and risk management solutions, reflecting the maturity of its journey and clear vision for itself and its customers. This approach is also being used to develop Granite, IBM’s family of large language models. These solutions and models reflect the maturity of IBM’s path and foresight for its clients.

In addition, in December 2023, IBM co-founded the AI Alliance, which now consists of more than 100 companies, startups, educational institutions, government agencies, and research labs around the world. The AI Alliance focuses on accelerating open-source innovation to enhance AI’s credibility and responsibly maximize its benefits for people and society in an inclusive way.

The AI Alliance aims to build a differentiated approach to the development of new AI fine-tuning techniques at the cultural and societal level and to create a more accessible and democratic approach to AI development, with the skills and training needed to advance the field, seeking to establish not only guidelines on use but concrete pathways to build AI systems that evolve and improve our daily lives. The goal is to transform AI users into co-creators of AI so that each can maintain full autonomy and control over the use of artificial intelligence. This aligns with the Rome Call for AI Ethics principles, which focuses on inclusion, rights and accountability.