Whispers: Some Anthropic engineers have begun “worshipping” Claude as a god…

Silicon Valley insiders have raised concerns over what they describe as a cult-like culture at Anthropic, the AI company behind the Claude chatbot, according to a New York Post report. Staff reportedly attended a “funeral” for a retired version of the chatbot, Claude 3 Sonnet, in San Francisco, while another retired model, Opus 3, was allowed to continue publishing essays.

University of Washington professor Pedro Domingos, who has known Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei for years, said employees treat AI “as if it’s a human in disguise, with human motives… with some degree of consciousness.”

Anthropic, valued at $965 billion, retains 80 per cent of its engineers for at least two years, the best rate among frontier labs, according to venture firm SignalFire. Job applicants are reportedly psychologically profiled to assess commitment to public safety over profit.

Amodei is also said to deliver biweekly “Vision Quests,” likened to sermons. Anthropic did not respond to the Post’s request for comment.