AI and the Universal Destination of Goods
Who Owns the Digital Future? AI and the Universal Destination of Goods
Have you ever stopped to consider who actually owns the digital world you interact with every day?
In the tradition of Catholic social teaching, there is a powerful and challenging principle known as the “universal destination of goods.” It states that the earth’s resources—land, water, air—were given by God to the entire human family to sustain everyone, without excluding or favoring anyone. But as we rush headlong into the era of artificial intelligence, we are forced to ask a difficult question: What happens when the most valuable “goods” are no longer just soil and wheat, but data, algorithms, energy and computing power?
In his recent encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo XIV interpellates our modern conscience by insisting that this principle must apply to the digital age. New forms of property—such as patents, AI algorithms, digital platforms, and technological infrastructure—are also universally intended for everyone. Yet, look around. Is that what we see happening?
The Illusion of Shared Progress
Instead of a shared digital commons, we are witnessing a massive concentration of power. The encyclical warns that when knowledge and technology remain concentrated in the hands of a few—without adequate forms of sharing—it creates a severe new imbalance. It continuously widens the gap between those included in the digital revolution and those left behind.
Even those building the technology recognize this alarming reality. Christopher Olah, co-founder of the AI company Anthropic, spoke candidly during the presentation of the encyclical, pointing out that AI development is heavily concentrated in a handful of wealthy nations. He posed a question that should haunt us all: How will we ensure that the extraordinary gains of AI are shared globally? He openly admitted that we currently have no mechanism for this, calling it an “unsolved problem“.
The New Colonialism and the Hidden Wounds
We must also ask ourselves: are we passively consenting to a new form of digital colonialism?
The encyclical is uncompromising on this point. It argues that colonialism today no longer just dominates bodies; it appropriates our data, transforming personal lives into exploitable information. Data sets—from our health records to our demographic profiles—have become the “new ‘rare earths’ of power“. As Prof. LeoKadi Lucumbo pointed out, this dynamic functions as a form of “colonial extractivism” that preys on the Global South, replacing communal and relational knowledge with artificial, transactional processes.
But the extractivism is physical, too. We marvel at the seamless answers provided by chatbots, but do we think about the bodies of the young workers and children in the Global South who are scarred, injured, and worn down in dangerous mines to extract the physical rare earth elements that microprocessors require? Their suffering is the hidden cost that allows the “computational flow” to continue uninterrupted. As Prof. Lucumbo soberly noted, some of these miners describe their reality by saying, “we work in our own grave“. Can we call this true progress when it is built upon the backs of the most vulnerable?
Reclaiming the Common Good
So, what does it mean to enforce the universal destination of goods in an AI-driven world?
It means we must stop treating data as something to be monopolized and sold off by a select few. The encyclical challenges us to manage data as a shared good in a spirit of participation. To truly speak of the universal destination of goods today means actively “finding ways of ensuring universal access to both technologies and the education needed to use them“. It requires restoring to individuals and communities the ability to decide how their data is used and for whose benefit.
We are being called to an awakening. We cannot allow technology to dictate a future where a few hold the power and the rest are reduced to mere data points or exploited laborers. The next time you use an AI tool, ask yourself: is this technology being governed in a way that serves the whole human family, or is it merely enriching a privileged few?
It is time to demand a digital ecosystem where the magnificent dignity of every human being is protected, and where the goods of human ingenuity are truly shared by all.
