Pope Leo XIV Just Gave the West Its Strongest Advantage in the AI Race

The AI race is often framed in terms of computer power, manufacturing output, and deployment speed. By these metrics, the United States leads China only narrowly. Beijing’s centralized system gives it real structural advantages—coordination, scale, and the ability to deploy technology rapidly without the friction of democratic oversight.

But this framing misses the point.

The real contest is not simply over who builds better machines. It is over what those machines are for—and what they say about the value of the human person.

This is where Pope Leo XIV has changed the conversation.

Magnifica Humanitas asserts, unapologetically, that every human being possesses “infinite dignity” that no state, algorithm, or system can override. That claim is not decorative. It is the foundation of an entire civilizational model—one built on the fusion of Athenian philosophy, Roman law, and the Judeo-Christian belief that each person is made in the image of God.

This inheritance is the West’s true advantage.

It is why, in the American system, the individual is prior to the state. It is why people are equal before the law. And it is why—even in the messy, imperfect world of modern governance—there are real efforts to constrain technology so it serves human beings rather than subsumes them.

This is not incidental to AI policy; it shapes it. From safety regulations to enforcement actions and algorithmic safeguards, the Western approach to AI reflects a deeper commitment to protecting the individual. That commitment is not something China can easily replicate.

Because China is working from a different premise entirely.

The Chinese model places the state above the person, the party above the law, and surveillance at the center of governance. The integration of digital platforms with state authority, the social credit system, and the realities of regions like Xinjiang make this clear. China can produce highly capable AI systems—but systems built to serve the state, not to protect the irreducible dignity of the individual.

Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical draws a line that Beijing cannot cross.

But the document does something even more important: it challenges the West itself.

Because the greatest threat to human dignity is not only external. It is also internal—especially within parts of the technology sector that increasingly treat the human being as an engineering problem.

Transhumanism, for instance, often reduces the person to data—something that can be optimized, transferred, or even discarded. The idea that consciousness is merely computation, and that humanity is a phase to be surpassed, is not science fiction anymore; it is an active current of thought in Silicon Valley.

The pope dismantles this logic with remarkable clarity. If humans are treated as things to be improved or replaced, then it becomes easier to decide that some lives matter less than others. That is not progress. It is a moral regression dressed in technical language.

The same critique applies to certain forms of effective altruism, which reduce human worth to calculations of future utility. When people become variables in an equation, it becomes dangerously easy to justify sacrificing the vulnerable for a supposedly greater good.

Again, the pope is direct: this is a worldview that risks justifying “necessary sacrifices” in the name of optimization.

In other words, Magnifica Humanitas is not just anti-authoritarian—it is anti-reductionist. It rejects any system, political or technological, that turns the human person into a means rather than an end.

And that is precisely why it matters strategically.

For all the talk of chips, data centers, and models, the West’s decisive advantage is not hardware. It is moral clarity. If the United States and its allies are serious about winning the AI race, they should stop treating ethics as a constraint and start treating it as a selling point.

Human dignity should be a feature of Western AI.

This has practical implications. In international diplomacy, “trustworthy AI” is already a common phrase—but it often lacks substance. Magnifica Humanitas gives it meaning. It roots trust not in vague assurances, but in a coherent vision of the human person that authoritarian systems cannot match.

It also opens the door to a broader coalition—one that extends beyond traditional alliances. Europe, Japan, India, Israel, and others share elements of this moral framework. Even more importantly, the Vatican has a unique ability to convene nations across political and cultural divides around questions of fundamental human value.

That is not a symbolic asset. It is a geopolitical one.

Of course, there will be resistance. Some will argue that ethical constraints slow innovation and risk handing victory to China. Others will try to turn the encyclical into a wedge issue, framing it as a conflict between religious authority and political leadership.

Both reactions miss the point.

A race without moral direction is not a race worth winning. And a technological order that sacrifices human dignity for speed or efficiency will ultimately undermine itself.

The lesson of Magnifica Humanitas is simple but profound: the future of AI will not be determined solely by capabilities, but by convictions.

The West can still win this race. But it will do so not by imitating its competitors, nor by abandoning its principles, but by embracing the one thing they cannot replicate—a vision of the human person as infinitely dignified, irreducible, and worth protecting.

That is not a limitation.

It is the strongest advantage we have.

• Raju Hasmukh with files from Daven Patel Crux Advisory Group