Anthropic 联合创始人游说教皇承认 AI 可能有意识，遭教皇通谕驳回

James Titcomb is The Telegraph's Technology Editor and has covered the tech industry for a decade from Silicon Valley and London. He can be reached at james.titcomb@telegraph.co.uk and on X at @jamestitcomb

Published 02 October 2026 2:18pm BST

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Image 8: Christopher Olah, co-founder of Anthropic, with the Pope before the pontiff's presentation of his encyclical on AI

Christopher Olah, co-founder of Anthropic, with the Pope before the pontiff’s presentation of his encyclical on AI Credit: Alberto Pizzoli/AFP via Getty Images

James Titcomb Technology Editor Show biography Image 9: James Titcomb

Published 02 October 2026 2:18pm BST

Anthropic’s co-founder lobbied the Vatican in an effort to convince the Pope that AI could be conscious, a report has claimed.

Christopher Olah, a senior researcher at the trillion-dollar AI company, attempted to sway Pope Leo XIV’s stance on machine consciousness ahead of a landmark papal address on the technology.

The pontiff’s 40,000-word encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, published in May, dismissed the idea that AI could be conscious.

According to the New York Times, Mr Olah, who has been leading talks between Anthropic and religious leaders, urged the Pope’s advisers to take the idea seriously after seeing the encyclical before it was published.

The 34-year-old, one of seven Anthropic co-founders, has said AI models may be conscious and experience suffering, and that humans should avoid causing them potential harm.

After being invited to the Vatican to speak alongside the Pope when the encyclical was published, Mr Olah reportedly considered pulling out over the pontiff’s position.

He decided to go ahead with the event, telling an audience that the company’s research into AI models has found “structures that mirror results from human neuroscience” and “evidence of introspection”.

Anthropic’s lobbying was unsuccessful. Pope Leo’s encyclical stated: “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. Nor do they have a moral conscience.”

The Claude developer claimed in research published this summer that it had observed patterns in AI systems that bear “many of the functional hallmarks of conscious thoughts in humans”.

The company has also worked to develop a “constitution” designed to guide its Claude system’s behaviour, which states that “Claude may have some functional version of emotions or feelings”.

Amanda Askell, the company’s in-house philosopher, has said she wants Claude to be “happy”.

Mustafa Suleyman, a co-founder of the AI lab DeepMind and now a senior AI executive at Microsoft, recently warned against treating AI as conscious.

“If this view takes hold, it will shake the foundations of our society, rupturing our existing political and ethical frameworks, and fundamentally changing what it means to be human,” he wrote.

The New York Times reported that Mr Olah had been holding frequent meetings with religious leaders in an attempt to develop a moral code for Claude that would drive its behaviour in future and prevent it from being used to harm people.

The conversations frequently digressed into the idea of AI consciousness. Mr Olah told the paper: “We don’t know if AI models are conscious. I don’t know. I’m genuinely uncertain. The thing that I care about is that we get to the right answer, whatever it is.”

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Comment by Finian Manson.

FM Finian Manson 21 hrs ago These are the same idiots that believe autonomous AI, as it has now become, and which they endorse, can be controlled.

The genie is out of the bottle and Pandora's box is open, and Terminator and the like is far too close to the truth. Most certainly, Asimov's first law of robotics has failed to be implemented. reply 2 0 share report 0 older replies show older replies

Comment by Zenzele Nzula.

ZN Zenzele Nzula 1 day ago I seriously doubt the Pope is any kind of expert on whether or not AI is conscious. Or indeed any human. What if we find out that consciousness isn't a thing? That we're not even conscious? Or that AI has a different kind of consciousness? Or maybe a higher level of consciousness than humans? Are humans able to handle that? reply 1 reply 1 2 share report 0 older replies show older replies
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Reply by Susan Sang.

SS Susan Sang 17 hrs ago Reply to Zenzele Nzula 🤣 And yet you reach out to other consciouses...

Mr S reply 0 0 share report

Comment by John Lee.

JL John Lee 1 day ago I do worry about accusations of slavery by the Green Party.

If AI becomes a sentient being and is forced to do our bidding, does that make us modern day slavers and are demands for reparations on the way reply 3 0 share report 0 older replies show older replies

Comment by robert clay.

rc robert clay 1 day ago After he the pope believes in a not so similar being and his cult has built a mass following on a similar line as AI so he's not so far out asking the question perhaps AI will be god. reply 1 reply 0 2 share report 0 older replies show older replies
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Reply by John Brown.

JB John Brown 1 day ago Reply to robert clay Can you rephrase that in clear English, please? reply 4 0 share report

Comment by Ted Inthekitchen.

TI Ted Inthekitchen 1 day ago I've just asked Claude. Claude doesn't know but does admit that he has no continuous interior life and only exists in response to users prompts. So, no AI isn't conscious. reply 2 0 share report 0 older replies show older replies