Friday, Oct 2, 2026
The San Francisco developer told religious consultants that its current edge in machine ethics is a temporary lead, with competing firms potentially surpassing its safety standards within half a year. During secret encounters at the company's headquarters that required nondisclosure agreements, representatives including a founder attempted to convince theologians and mental health professionals that its Claude AI possesses a soul and moral standing to aid in its training.
Anthropic also pressured the Vatican to modify the "Magnifica Humanitas" document to avoid a formal rejection of AI personhood before its release. Researcher Chris Olah reportedly lobbied the pope's advisers after a papal encyclical declared that AI is incapable of feeling joy or pain. The company flew leaders from Catholic, Jewish, Sikh, and evangelical backgrounds to California to help establish a moral compass for its models.
Key sources
- SOURCE@daviddecosimo“Anthropic secretly invited religious leaders to SF to advise them on AI safety, had them sign NDAs, but then primarily tried to convince them Claude has a soul & moral standing”x.com
- SOURCE@daviddecosimo“Anthropic tried very hard to get the Vatican to alter the text of 'Magnifica Humanitas' just prior to its release so that it would not deny AI personhood”x.com
- SOURCE@rohanpaul_ai“Anthropic called Swami Sarvapriyananda, a Vedanta monk and flew him to the San Francisco head-office”x.com
- SOURCE@rohanpaul_ai“Within 6 months another lab can pass them, and that lab may not carry the same concerns”x.com
- SUPPORT@ktmboyle“people in this world who having renounced all the laws of God and Nature themselves make laws which they rigorously obey”x.com
- SUPPORT@ryangrim“The Anthropic people are an insane cult that worships their machine and also have an ungodly amount of power”x.com
- SUPPORT@rohanpaul_ai“theologians and mental health people in the same sitting, all of it aimed at training Claude”x.com
- SOURCEhuggingnewshuggingnews.com