They say an audience with the pope is the mark of a professional who has reached the top of his or her career. If that’s the case, then Marco Trombetti and Alex Waibel must be wearing their laurels proudly.
Trombetti — co-founder of Italian language service provider Translated — and Waibel — a professor at Carnegie Mellon University and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology specializing in automatic speech translation — are slated to advise Pope Leo XIV on artificial intelligence (AI) and its related social and economic concerns at the 2025 World Meeting on Human Fraternity on Friday, September 12. Their participation brings expertise and perspectives from the language industry to an influential global event.
The meeting will include 15 “thematic roundtables,” one of which will focus on AI. According to the event’s press release, each roundtable aims to “explore the meaning of being human today, collect best practices, and identify concrete actions” related to the field.
“The goal is to help guide public policies, educational pathways, knowledgeable decisions, and strategic choices to face the complex challenges of our time,” the press release says.
Elected to the papacy on May 8, Leo XIV — the first American pope, previously known as Robert Francis Prevost — has spoken before about AI’s impact on humanity, so it’s no surprise that the technology is a centerpiece of the upcoming meeting.
“AI, especially generative AI, has opened new horizons on many different levels, including enhancing research in healthcare and scientific discovery, but also raises troubling questions on its possible repercussions on humanity’s openness to truth and beauty, on our distinctive ability to grasp and process reality,” Leo XIV said at the Second Annual Rome Conference on AI in June.
Given the thorny issues and still-uncertain future surrounding AI, it’s no wonder the pope is seeking advice from representatives of diverse industries. At Friday’s meeting, Trombetti and Waibel will offer their deep knowledge of AI’s use in translation, interpretation, speech recognition, and language-related topics. Together, the two share an insider’s perspective on the evolution of machine translation and large language models over the past several decades.
Expertise from the language industry will undoubtedly be an asset to Leo XIV as he continues to explore pathways toward a harmonious relationship between humankind and its technology.
“Fraternity, the root of humanity that dwells in institutions and marginal communities, schools and businesses, hospitals and sports centers — even across digital networks and AI — becomes visible when it generates new forms of social charity, alliances of knowledge, and solidarity between generations,” the press release says. “We must look towards the one true horizon: that of humanity nourished by fraternity.”
