Anthropic co-founder nearly pulled out of Pope's AI encyclical

Days before Pope Leo XIV's first encyclical launched at the Vatican on May 25, Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah read an advance copy and proposed that his company pull out of the event.

He appeared on the dais anyway, standing in for CEO Dario Amodei, who had declined the invitation.

What bothered Olah was the encyclical's position on machine consciousness. Titled *Magnifica Humanitas*, the document says AI systems "do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain." The pope goes further: "Nor do they have a moral conscience, since they do not judge good and evil, grasp the ultimate meaning of situations, or bear responsibility for consequences."

According to The New York Times, Olah's team then privately lobbied the pope's advisers to take the possibility of AI consciousness seriously. The final text did not change.

The Vatican approach sat inside a broader campaign. Since fall 2025, Anthropic has flown religious scholars to its offices under non-disclosure agreements to discuss whether its Claude models might be conscious or have moral status. The Times names Rabbi Mois Navon, Catholic bioethicist Charles Camosy, Notre Dame philosopher Meghan Sullivan, and Ubuntu researcher Wakanyi Hoffman among the participants.

The story is by Elizabeth Dias, the Times's national religion correspondent, and was published September 29.