Less than two weeks after Pope Leo XIV published “Magnifica Humanitas,” the government of Canada released “Canada’s National Artificial Intelligence Strategy: AI for All.” A comparison of the documents reveals that Canada’s strategy is a partial — but still problematic — solution to the social destabilization being wrought by these new digital technologies.
Pope Leo’s first encyclical is far more than a response to the advent of AI; it is a synthetic restatement of the Catholic social teaching tradition and a defense of the human person properly understood through the revelation of Jesus Christ.
He brings these themes into focus through a striking biblical contrast: the Tower of Babel standing in opposition to the Heavenly Jerusalem — a properly Augustinian move. The former seeks to establish unity through the exercise of human power, challenging God through its blind and singular ambition; the latter emerges through cooperation with God’s grace, allowing an Edenic variety to flourish.
The letter suggests that there is a new source of power that risks becoming as totalizing as that ancient tower: beyond the state as it has existed since the 19th century, there are now “private…often transnational parties,” meaning private businesses and organizations, pursuing immense influence over people’s daily affairs. These companies are often driven by profit and further expansion of their technological capacities, making their incentives corrosive to a genuine pursuit of the common good.
In response to these novel circumstances, “Magnifica Humanitas” recognizes that “a just society requires a vigilant state and civil institutions that are capable of overcoming the singular mentality of efficiency, and of ensuring that resources, creative solutions and regulations favour the most vulnerable.”
“AI for All” can reasonably be positioned as an answer to this call for defending against transnational companies. As the opening message from Minister Evan Solomon says, “Canada’s new AI strategy will build on this momentum to develop a responsible, safe and sovereign AI industry and research community — one that ensures AI will serve all Canadians, not the other way around.”
A number of goals listed in the document appear laudable. The government wants to protect children from harmful AI content; privacy is noted as a paramount concern in the digital age; training is being developed for teaching Canadians skills to recognize and properly use AI systems; and small and medium-sized enterprises are considered at risk and in need of protection.
In all these cases, the government can challenge the predatory and distant actions of AI companies that seek to extract information and feed content, both manipulative and manipulated, to Canadians; where individuals or small enterprises are threatened by transnational conglomerates, the Canadian state can stand in defense.
These are laudable goals; but what makes them laudable? What is the good pursued by these policy principles that suggests they should be praised?
The answer is that these policies seek to preserve the agency of Canadians against the encroachment of technological powers over which they exercise little control. This is entirely consistent with the Catholic principle of subsidiarity: persons and smaller associations ought to retain responsibility for their own affairs, and larger institutions should provide assistance only where necessary.
But here we encounter a familiar problem. The dangers posed by concentrated private power cannot simply be resolved by transferring that power to the state. Indeed, this was a central concern of “Rerum Novarum” and, more explicitly, “Quadragesimo Anno.” Both recognized the necessity of political intervention against economic exploitation while insisting upon the integrity of families, communities and other associations that constitute society.
“Quadragesimo Anno,” written by Pius XI, famously insisted that it is an injustice for larger associations to arrogate to themselves responsibilities properly belonging to smaller ones. The state exists to assist these associations — not to absorb their activities into its own administration.
Canada’s strategy, however, risks this confusion. It proposes governmental oversight of AI-enabled misinformation, extensive monitoring of AI’s social and economic consequences, and substantial investments in sovereign technological infrastructure.
None of these initiatives is necessarily objectionable, yet each raises questions about the increasing concentration of technological authority within the state.
More troubling is the strategy’s ambition to accelerate AI adoption throughout Canadian society. The government proposes increasing business adoption from 12 to 60 per cent by 2034. But what if particular businesses, schools or communities determine that AI is detrimental to the goods they pursue? Is their agency respected only insofar as they exercise it in accordance with the government’s technological ambitions?
Here the distinction between national sovereignty and genuine subsidiarity becomes essential. A technologically sovereign Canada is not necessarily a Canada whose citizens possess greater authority over their own affairs.
The Tower of Babel, after all, is not objectionable merely because the wrong people are building it. Its error lies in the ambition to subject human plurality to a singular project of power.
The challenge posed by “Magnifica Humanitas” is therefore not simply to replace foreign technological domination with Canadian technological sovereignty. It is to preserve the diverse associations through which Canadians exercise their agency and pursue their common goods. Otherwise, we risk exchanging one tower for another.
