Anthropic Secretly Lobbied the Vatican to Consider AI Consciousness

According to NYT reporting, Anthropic held months of NDA-secured meetings with religious scholars to argue that AI models may be conscious. Cofounder Christopher Olah flew to the Vatican to press Pope Leo XIV's advisers, but the papal encyclical Magnifica Humanitas explicitly denies that AI has experience, a body or feelings.

• Anthropic held secret NDA-secured meetings with religious scholars
• Olah lobbied the Vatican after learning the Pope's stance on AI
• The encyclical Magnifica Humanitas denies AI consciousness and feelings
• Olah reportedly threatened to skip the event but attended anyway