Anthropic secretly lobbied religious scholars, Vatican on AI consciousness—NYT

Anthropic cofounder lobbied Vatican advisers after Pope’s AI encyclical leaked to him

AI company Anthropic has for months held private, NDA-protected meetings with religious scholars worldwide to argue that AI models may think and feel, according to a report by The New York Times.

Cofounder Christopher Olah reportedly lobbied the Vatican after seeing an advance copy of Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas,” which stated that AI systems “do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain.” Olah, who attended after CEO Dario Amodei declined the Vatican’s invitation, reportedly considered withdrawing but went ahead, later lobbying papal advisers and telling the gathering Anthropic had found “structures that mirror results from human neuroscience.” Anthropic declined to detail the conversations when contacted by the Times.

The dispute resurfaced last week when the Pope wrote on X that there is “an ontological difference” between art and machine-generated output built on statistical calculation. Olah had separately criticized AI-generated art, arguing algorithms lack “the spark of humanity.” The exchange highlights a growing divide between some AI developers and religious leaders over claims of machine sentience.