Lion XIV, artificial intelligence, and the old problem of power

The first major doctrinal intervention by Leo XIV on artificial intelligence leaves an ambivalent feeling. On one hand, it accurately identifies a real problem: technology is not neutral with respect to culture, institutions, and human dignity. The expansion of systems capable of influencing decisions, information, and social relationships raises questions that transcend mere economic efficiency.

However, when the document moves from diagnosis to solutions, tensions arise that deserve attention.

The encyclical insists on the need for regulation, institutional coordination, and international governance mechanisms to oversee the development of artificial intelligence. The proposal seems reasonable at first glance. But immediately a question arises that runs through the entire libertarian tradition: who controls those who control?

Political history offers an uncomfortable lesson. Regulatory bodies rarely remain aloof from the interests they are supposed to oversee. They often end up captured by large corporations, lobbying groups, or bureaucracies that develop their own objectives. The problem of power does not disappear when it shifts from a tech company to a state or supranational body; it simply changes hands.

The central concern should be to think about what a political apparatus with the capacity to supervise, censor, or direct technological development on a global scale could do. As Murray Rothbard warned, the state has structural incentives to expand its powers beyond the limits initially promised.

The encyclical also questions the "idolatry of profit." The observation points to a real phenomenon: no society can reduce all human dimensions to economic gain. However, there is a risk of confusing two distinct issues.

Profit does not necessarily constitute a form of exploitation. In a market economy, profit is often the signal that a company has managed to meet others' needs more efficiently than its competitors. Economic gain is not, by definition, a moral anomaly, but a tool for social coordination based on voluntary exchanges.

The relevant issue is not the existence of profits, but the existence of privileges. A fortune built through innovation and competition is not the same as one obtained through regulations designed to block rivals or capture political rents.

Another striking aspect is the emphasis placed on the risks of technology and the relative scarcity of references to spontaneous mechanisms of social adaptation. Economic history shows that the greatest leaps in prosperity did not arise from centralized plans but from decentralized processes of innovation, competition, and entrepreneurial discovery.

The Industrial Revolution, the internet, or the digital economy were not the result of a global authority that correctly anticipated the future. They were the product of millions of coordinated individual decisions through open institutions and dynamic markets. The human capacity to experiment, correct mistakes, and generate solutions from the bottom up appears less developed in the document than the need for oversight from above.

A similar situation occurs with the trust placed in multilateral structures. Leo XIV revives a tradition of Catholic thought that sees international cooperation as a tool to face global challenges. However, recent experience has fueled a growing distrust of transnational bureaucracies.

The libertarian critique does not reject cooperation. What it questions is the concentration of power in bodies increasingly distant from citizens and less subject to effective mechanisms of political control. The larger the decision-making scale, the harder it becomes to identify responsibilities and correct mistakes.

Finally, a deeper question arises: the relationship between ethics and freedom.

The encyclical proposes a demanding moral vision regarding the use of technology. In this area, there is ample space for agreement. Every society needs to deliberate on the ends toward which it directs its scientific advancements. The problem arises when ethical reflection ceases to be persuasive and seeks to transform into institutional imposition.

A robust liberal tradition fully accepts moral debate, cultural criticism, and philosophical discussion. What it rejects is for a particular conception of the good to become the foundation for coercively restricting peaceful individual choices.

There lies, probably, the core of the disagreement.

Leo XIV's concern is to prevent technology from dehumanizing man. The liberal concern is to prevent the strengthening of power structures capable of limiting freedom in the name of protecting man.

Both concerns are legitimate. The decisive question is to determine which of the two risks represents the most immediate threat to an open society.

Because history shows that technologies change. Markets evolve. Companies are born and disappear. But political power, once expanded, rarely retreats of its own accord.