The Bad Placeqwant news | Why the Vatican Invited Anthropic to the Pope’s AI Encyclical Presentation
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Pope Leo XIV’s inaugural AI encyclical, *Magnifica Humanitas*, was presented in the Vatican on May 25 2026 with a rare appearance by Christopher Olah, co‑founder of the AI‑safety‑focused startup Anthropic, highlighting an unprecedented alliance between the Catholic Church and Silicon Valley. Anthropic, founded in 2021 by former OpenAI researchers who warned that unchecked competition was creating overly powerful models, built its reputation on “Constitutional AI” – embedding ethical principles directly into algorithms – and has become the Vatican’s preferred interlocutor on AI alignment. The Holy See’s engagement began with the 2020 Rome Call for AI Ethics and has evolved into a direct partnership aimed at ensuring that AI development remains transparent, inclusive, and accountable, countering the concentration of technological power in a few private actors. Both the encyclical and Olah’s remarks stress that AI is not neutral; it reflects the values of its creators and poses a shared risk of a “digital Babylon” or a “Hiroshima of the 21st century” where increasingly autonomous systems could be driven by distorted economic, geopolitical, and competitive incentives, underscoring the need for collective ethical governance beyond industry self‑regulation.
Read more: https://www.wired.com/story/anthropic-christopher-olah-pope-ai-encyclical/
