Anthropic Pressed Vatican to Drop AI Personhood Denial

The San Francisco based developer sought modifications to the wording of 'Magnifica Humanitas' to ensure the Catholic Church did not formally reject the concept of artificial intelligence as a person. Researcher David DeCosimo stated the company pressed the Vatican to revise the text of the document prior to its release to remove denials of AI personhood, marking an escalation in the company's efforts to influence how religious authorities view machine consciousness.

The attempt to modify church doctrine follows a series of secret meetings where Anthropic flew leaders from various faiths, including Vedanta monk Swami Sarvapriyananda, to its headquarters. These guests signed nondisclosure agreements for closed-door sessions attended by a company founder and mental health professionals. According to DeCosimo, the company used lavish hospitality to persuade these leaders that its Claude model possesses a soul and moral standing to assist in training the system.