The Catholic Church was the center of European scholarship and science for most of the past two millennia, roughly through the mid-1800s.
Modern genetics was invented by Augustinian friar and abbot Gregor Mendel (1822-1884).
Where do you think the robes worn at university graduations come from?
Supporting scholarship has always been central to its mission. The difference is that 1850 was around when other establishments had enough resources to pass it. You might say that the Vatican might have "plenty of money to acquire the hardware," but they can't come close to competing with Google Research or OpenAI (especially when so many other things are part of its mission).
> You might say that the Vatican might have “plenty of money to acquire the hardware,” but they can’t come close to competing with Google Research or OpenAI (especially when so many other things are part of its mission).
If AI research was a real priority and the Church prioritized it by not only Vatican institutions but the large number of Catholic universities, etc., I’m not sure that’s true. But its unlikely to be such a priority: its an interesting technology, sure, and likely to get some attention, but its not centrally what the Church is about.
EDIT: More relevantly to the subject here, though, the Catholic Church has been deeply engaged with questions regarding the use and role of AI; the Pontifical Academy for Life organized the “RenAIssance: For a Human-centric Artificial Intelligence” congress which produced the Rome Call for AI ethics [0] (as well as an earlier 2019 conference on AI ethics), and the Vatican subsequently established the RenAIssance Foundation [1] to carry the mission of that call forward.
Modern genetics was invented by Augustinian friar and abbot Gregor Mendel (1822-1884).
Where do you think the robes worn at university graduations come from?
Supporting scholarship has always been central to its mission. The difference is that 1850 was around when other establishments had enough resources to pass it. You might say that the Vatican might have "plenty of money to acquire the hardware," but they can't come close to competing with Google Research or OpenAI (especially when so many other things are part of its mission).