Vatican taps atheist Anthropic cofounder to speak at AI event as tensions with Trump White House rise | Latest Tech News
Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical on artificial intelligence is slated for a Vatican event next week that will embrace Anthropic cofounder Christopher Olah – a self-described “atheist” who has written snarky weblog posts that criticized religions including Catholicism, The Post has realized.
Olah, a 33-year-old AI researcher who is on the crew crafting the Claude chatbot’s “soul document”,” is one of a handful of secular officers tapped to speak at a Monday event. The pope’s missive, titled “Magnifica Humanitas,” will focus on defending human dignity during the rise of artificial intelligence.
But Olah’s worldview seems to be like an awkward match for the Vatican. In August 2010, he shared a hyperlink to a web site that urged UK residents to protest a go to by Pope Benedict XVI on his personal Twitter account. In February 2011, he shared a hyperlink to an Irish Times article with the headline “Charges initiated against Pope for crimes against humanity.”
Christopher Olah is an Anthropic cofounder. Chris Olah/X
Olah has also expressed important views about religion – and particularly Catholicism – in a weblog that he maintained as a teenager, which is still viewable online. In one post, Olah described getting into a debate with a group of “evangelists” who “wanted me to know that Jesus loves me.”
“I responded by asking if the Bible was the word of God, and when they said yes, I started asking about how their loving God could have committed genocide and infanticide (Exodus 11), promoted slavery (Leviticus 25), and ordered rape (Judges 21),” Olah wrote in a 2010 post.
“Finally one said that God must exist because he made the World and that any scientist would tell me so (!!!),” he added. “To which I responded that they wouldn’t and that the teleological argument runs into problems with its assumption that the world couldn’t exist forever and, by the way, where did god come from?”
In another post that same yr, Olah drew parallels between the story of Jesus and that of the Greek thinker Socrates, who he described as “eerily similar.”
Pope Leo XIV walks outdoors the papal residence before heading back to the Vatican, in Castel Gandolfo, Italy May 19, 2026. REUTERS
“One might suspect that Christianity borrowed some of its content,” Olah wrote. “If you (living in the Roman Empire) want to convince your friends that this Jesus figure was executed unjustly, it would be very tempting to make him as similar as possible to Socrates.”
Olah is an “ethical vegan and an atheist,” according to his profile on a web site for a motion called “Sentientism,” whose adherents consider in “evidence, reason and compassion for all sentient beings.”
The Post reached out to Olah, Anthropic and the Vatican for remark.
Chris Olah has a profile web page on a web site for an ideology called “Sentientism.” Chris Olah
“It is disappointing that secularists are the centerpiece of this event,” said Nathan Leamer, govt director of the advocacy group Build American AI and himself a Christian. “We should be leaning on those who believe in the eternal to guide this discourse – not a person who believes they are God.”
A veteran of OpenAI and Google, Olah has also expressed assist for Open Philanthropy, a group at the forefront of the controversial “Effective Altruism” motion, writing on X in February 2018 that he would “seriously consider working there” if he wasn’t working on AI.
Olah once wrote a weblog post detailing his snarky spat with a group of evangelists. Chris Olah
Olah is a key member of Anthropic’s crew of in-house philosophers who constructed what staff call Claude’s “soul document,” which governs the chatbot’s ethical compass. In April, he was featured in an Atlantic magazine article titled “Why Silicon Valley Is Turning To The Catholic Church.”
In the article, Olah is described as an atheist who believes Claude is a “thinking, feeling entity in need of ‘moral formation.’” At the same time, Olah revealed that his crew had contacted Catholic officers, including a priest, a bishop and a theologian, for suggestions when crafting the “soul document.”
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei speaks at an event. REUTERS
Olah also reportedly in contrast his own function at Anthropic to that of a priest who was training Claude on how to “be a good person, in some sense.”
The Vatican has not offered particulars on what Olah will talk about at the press convention for the encyclical. Other audio system slated to seem at the event embrace Cardinals Victor Manuel and Michael Czerny, as nicely as theologians Anna Rowlands and Leocadie Lushombo.
Leo himself is also scheduled to ship remarks at the press convention.
Olah said he was “honored to speak at the presentation” in a May 18 post on X.
President Trump has been important of Anthropic’s management. AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin
“The questions posed by AI are bigger than the AI community,” Olah wrote. “We urgently need the world – religions, civil society, academics, governments – to participate in creating a positive outcome.”
Vice President JD Vance said on May 19 that he was “looking forward to reading” the AI encyclical, describing it as “a very, very important document.”
The Vatican’s choice of an Anthropic official to speak at an event unveiling its views on AI might kick off another rift with the Trump administration. Pope Leo has been vocally important of insurance policies embraced by President Trump, including the US conflict in Iran and the administration’s immigration insurance policies. Trump has said he’s “not a fan” of Leo.
At the same time, Trump stays at loggerheads with Anthropic, which is at the moment suing his administration after the Department of War labeled the company a provide chain risk. The president has described Anthropic’s management, including CEO Dario Amodei, as “left wing nutjobs.”
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