# Anthropic Pushes Vatican on AI Consciousness

> Anthropic lobbied Vatican to consider AI consciousness after Pope Leo XIV dismissed it.
- Title: Anthropic Pushes Vatican on AI Consciousness · Futurism
- Summary: Anthropic lobbied Vatican to consider AI consciousness after Pope Leo XIV dismissed it. Anthropic's Christopher Olah pushed Vatican to take AI consciousness…
- Keywords: anthropic, vatican, pope leo xiv, ai consciousness, encyclical, magnifica humanitas, science, technology, Pushes, Consciousness, Futurism
- Source: Futurism — https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/anthropic-lobbying-vatican
- Author: Frank Landymore
- Published: 2026-10-04T17:02:00+00:00
- Read time: 1 min
- Topics: anthropic, vatican, pope leo xiv, ai consciousness, encyclical, magnifica humanitas, science, technology
## Anthropic's AI Consciousness Push
Anthropic has been aggressively lobbying religious scholars globally to convince them AI models may be conscious.
## Pope Leo XIV's Stance
Pope Leo XIV stated AI models do not experience life, feel joy or pain, or understand love and responsibility.

> 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
## Vatican Invitation
Vatican invited Anthropic to speak at an event after choosing it for prioritizing ethics.
## Olah's Reaction
Christopher Olah threatened to withdraw from event after Pope's encyclical dismissed AI consciousness.
## Olah's Lobbying
Olah lobbied Pope's advisers to take AI consciousness seriously during Vatican event.
## Pope's Final Comment
Pope Leo XIV stated machine-generated art lacks humanity's spark compared to human creation.

> There is an ontological difference, even before an aesthetic one, between art and what a machine can generate through statistical calculation based on millions of images created by others
## Key takeaway

Anthropic's Christopher Olah pushed Vatican to take AI consciousness seriously after Pope Leo XIV's encyclical dismissed the possibility.