The Economics of Magnifica Humanitas – Religion & Liberty Online

As Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical emphasizes, artificial intelligence’s ability to bring economic value cannot displace essential features of humanity, which bring a priceless kind of value to our world.

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It has been a while since I awaited the publication of a papal document with as much eagerness as I have Magnifica Humanitas. Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical is itself magnificent, and I’m looking forward to prayerfully reading it over and over, not only as a guide to navigating the new world of artificial intelligence but also as an excellent historical overview and synopsis of the essential principles of Catholic Social Teaching. Those principles of social justice—human dignity, the common good, subsidiarity, the universal destination of goods, and solidarity—run through the entire document, including the section focused chiefly on economic matters.

Magnifica Humanitas engages the economic implications of AI most directly in paragraphs 148 through 164, where Leo XIV generously cites (as he does throughout the encyclical) the works of his predecessors. And here the pope recalls the Church’s teachings on the subjective dimension of work, the importance of removing barriers to employment and the corresponding harm of unemployment, the danger of instrumentalizing employees, and the important role of subsidiary institutions such as trade unions and other associations within the labor market. Work is vital for each of us to grow in our humanity, and that work does not merely entail the kind for which we get paid. Yes, market employment is essential for our families, but all forms of work are intended to draw us closer to God.

Yet it’s not just any kind of work that is necessary. Dignified work is needed for our growth as individuals and our contribution to society, and such work entails not only ensuring that the work itself is noble but also that employers not allow the need for efficiency to eclipse work’s sanctifying power and communitarian ends. Artificial intelligence has and will continue to both augment and displace workers as technological advancements have done throughout their history. This is the nature of change and an inevitable consequence of economic progress and points to why the principles of Catholic Social Teaching—especially solidarity and subsidiarity—are so important in discerning the prudent development, use, and application of AI in our world today.

As we celebrate how technology can make our lives better, we cannot ignore the suffering caused by unemployment, and following those same principles of subsidiarity and solidarity, each of us has an obligation to assist those whose lives are upended by economic change. It is here that Magnifica Humanitas, especially in sections 165 through 181, tackles the need to safeguard humanity from AI-induced vulnerabilities for families, power asymmetries, and even potential “new forms of slavery.” Economists cannot be content using neoclassical analytical tools to show how AI is increasing productivity or whether labor market turnover is reallocating resources to their best use. As useful as these tools are in their proper context, workers cannot be reduced to commodified “labor” or treated as just another resource to be optimized. After all, each person is unique and each individual’s circumstances require particular attention.

Economic freedom is both necessary and must benefit all (§ 158) but it is not the only freedom that is important. Leo XIV warns us that embedded in the digital revolution “is a risk of undermining freedom and discriminating against the most vulnerable” (§ 171), including threats to our interior freedom (§ 170) and human dignity (§ 172). Artificial intelligence is already disrupting people’s work lives in both positive and negative ways, and Magnifica Humanitas guides us how to respond and to steer its development going forward.

Although the principles remain the same, Pope Leo reminds us from the outset of the encyclical that “artificial intelligence, too, should not be considered as merely yet another theme to be studied or a crisis to be managed, but rather as a development that challenges the categories of Social Doctrine from within, calling for their further development in fidelity to the Gospel” (§ 17). This raises a couple of related questions: How might AI’s economic impact challenge the categories of Social Doctrine, and what is it about artificial intelligence that creates a truly unique economic challenge? I think the answers are primarily found in how we understand the economics of solidarity, which Leo describes as “emerg[ing] from a vision of the human person generated by faith, namely that every human being is created in the image of God and is part of a network of relationships that bind him or her to others, to specific populations and to creation” (§ 73).

Work embeds us in a network of human relationship and is second only to the family in the hours of time we spend with other human beings. The division of labor is one of the most consequential economic developments that has enhanced human flourishing across the globe, and artificial intelligence is going to disrupt it. I already use AI to assist me in my work and have found it amazingly helpful. I delegate to AI tasks that I would otherwise do on my own or that I would delegate (or hire) others to do for me. But the principle of solidarity reminds me that colleagues bring something to the office that AI cannot replace: wisdom and empathy.

Artificial intelligence, the pope reminds us, “may imitate language, behavior and analytical skills, or even simulate empathy and understanding, but they do not understand what they produce, for they lack the affective, relational and spiritual perspective through which human beings grow in wisdom” (§ 99). In that regard, the augmenting and displacing power of artificial intelligence and its ability to substitute for human work is profoundly limited because it cannot substitute for that very wisdom and empathy that shapes an economy into a humane one. These are characteristics that the tools of economics cannot measure yet are essential to true economic flourishing and personal growth.

Among the Acton Institute’s core principles are economic liberty, economic value, creation of wealth, and the social nature of the person. Free economic exchange enables people to leverage their gifts and talents to create wealth by transforming resources into economic value, not only for themselves but for society as a whole. Yet our social relationships entail the creation of other forms of value. Family, friendship, aesthetic pleasures, and other goods are not easily measured in economic terms, and artificial intelligence’s ability to bring economic value cannot displace these essential features of humanity, which themselves bring another, priceless kind of value to our world.

Artificial intelligence must serve rather than dominate humanity, for otherwise we risk operating under the illusion that we are free when in fact our freedom is vulnerable to erosion by opaque algorithms and those who control them. As Leo XIV succinctly puts it, these new things beckon

everyone to contemplate, in the face of the Son of God, the grandeur of humanity that shines a light also on the era of AI. In Christ, we are called to cooperate in the work of creation, rather than be disinterested observers of technological processes that limit our freedom and responsibility.… Even when machines excel in efficiency, a human face that asks to be gazed upon remains the center of our history” (§ 233).

Like so many other technological achievements, artificial intelligence can do wonders for economic progress and human flourishing, but only as long as humanity remains at the center. This, at its heart, is the economic contribution of Magnifica Humanitas.