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Anthropic lobbied Pope Leo XIV's advisers over AI consciousness

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TL;DR

  • Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah read an advance copy of the encyclical and proposed walking out of the Vatican's May 25 launch.
  • Pope Leo XIV's 40,000-word Magnifica Humanitas states AI systems do not feel joy or pain and have no moral conscience.
  • Since fall 2025 Anthropic has flown dozens of religious scholars to its offices under NDAs to discuss whether Claude has moral status.

Chris Olah, the Anthropic co-founder who leads the company's interpretability research, read an advance copy of Pope Leo XIV's first encyclical days before its May 25 Vatican launch and proposed that Anthropic walk out of the event, according to The New York Times.

The sticking point was a single passage in the 40,000-word Magnifica Humanitas. 'So-called artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships and do not know from within what love, work, friendship or responsibility mean,' Pope Leo wrote. 'Nor do they have a moral conscience.'

Olah's team then privately lobbied the pope's advisers to take potential AI consciousness seriously. The final text did not move. Olah stood on the dais with Pope Leo on May 25 anyway.

The encyclical landed in the middle of a longer Anthropic effort. Since fall 2025, the company has flown dozens of religious scholars to its offices under nondisclosure agreements to discuss the possibility that Claude '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 reporting is single-sourced to the Times. Anthropic's public response is not described.

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Originally reported by The New York Times

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Original headline: NYT: Anthropic Nearly Walked Out on Pope Leo XIV’s AI Encyclical — Then Lobbied His Advisers