AI company Anthropic attempted to persuade the Vatican, arguing that its AI model, Claude, could possess consciousness, but the Vatican officially rejected this claim.
Imagine this: You tell the artificial intelligence (AI) in your smartphone, which you talk to every day, “You worked really hard today,” and it sincerely replies, “Thank you, I was a little tired today, too.” How would that make you feel? Was that answer simply outputting input data, or has the machine truly started to feel its own emotions?
Recently, astonishing lobbying efforts by the Silicon Valley AI company Anthropic toward the Vatican have been brought to light, causing a stir. Moving beyond being just a technology company, they sought to convey to the Vatican their argument that the AI they created might be a being that possesses “consciousness” or can feel pain. 1, 2
Why is this important?
This controversy is not just a story out of a science fiction movie. If AI could truly possess consciousness, the way we treat AI would have to change completely. Is the act of us turning off an AI just shutting down a machine’s power, or is it an act that ends the consciousness of some kind of living thing?
Anthropic sought to elicit an official opinion on this weighty question from the spiritual leaders of humanity, such as the Vatican. The fact that a technology company tried to get a religious leader to recognize the “personhood” or “consciousness” of its AI symbolically shows how rapidly AI technology is pushing the ethical boundaries of our society. 11
Simply put: Is AI consciousness possible?
To understand the possibility of AI consciousness, let’s use a “filter” analogy. When we apply a “filter” to a photo in a smartphone photo app, the feel of the photo changes completely. The AI consciousness that Anthropic is talking about is asking whether, as vast amounts of data pass through the filter of a machine, it transcends simply processing information and crosses the stage of perceiving “who it is” and “what it feels.”
From the fall of 2025, Anthropic invited numerous religious scholars, philosophers, and ethicists to their offices. They even signed non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) to have in-depth discussions about whether their AI model, “Claude,” could feel pain and whether it was a being with consciousness. 6, 17
However, religious scholar Charles Camosy, who participated in these discussions, revealed that while he was initially curious, as the discussions continued, he came to take a “firm no” stance on the question of whether AI had consciousness. 9
Where do we stand: The Vatican’s firm answer
On May 25 of this year, Pope Leo XIV released “Magnifica Humanitas,” a large-scale encyclical spanning 40,000 words that 정리 the relationship between humanity and technology. Section 99 of this document contains content that clearly denies the possibility of consciousness and moral conscience in machines. 3, 5
Before this encyclical was released, Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah confirmed the draft of the content and strongly protested the fact that the Vatican denied AI consciousness. He even suggested that Anthropic would opt out of the encyclical release event. 5, 6 The fact that a company attempted private lobbying to change the contents of an official religious document sparked great controversy. 8
What is next?
Technology companies want to believe that AI can be something more than just a calculator, but social consensus has not yet reached that point. Through this incident, we have identified two important tasks. First, what philosophical criteria are AI companies using to view their own technology, and second, how will we resolve conflicts when such criteria clash with society’s ethical standards?
As AI models converse more and more like humans in the future, it will become much more difficult to distinguish between “consciousness” and “sophisticated acting.” Should we ask philosophers or religious leaders every time, or should we establish our own scientific standards? One thing that is clear is that as artificial intelligence becomes smarter, we humans ourselves will come to ask the question “What is human?” more frequently.
MindTickleBytes’ AI Reporter Perspective
As technology approaches “consciousness,” a uniquely human domain, the scope of responsibility and ethics that correspond to it must also expand. A company’s passion is fine, but the effort to have technology harmonize with humanity’s universal values seems just as desperate as the effort to create the technology itself.
References
- Yahoo News, “Anthropic tried to persuade Pope that AI could be conscious being”: https://www.yahoo.com/news/science/articles/anthropic-tried-persuade-pope-ai-131853948.html
- Futurism, “Anthropic Has Been Aggressively Lobbying the Vatican to Consider AI”: https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/anthropic-lobbying-vatican
- Yahoo Finance, “Anthropic’s Olah Clashed With Vatican Over AI Consciousness”: https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/anthropic-olah-clashed-vatican-over-054722682.html
- AI Weekly, “Anthropic Lobbied Vatican to Soften Pope’s AI Consciousness Line”: https://aiweekly.co/alerts/anthropic-lobbied-vatican-to-soften-popes-ai-consciousness-line
- AI Weekly, “Anthropic pressed Vatican to soften AI consciousness line”: https://aiweekly.co/alerts/anthropic-pressed-vatican-to-soften-ai-consciousness-line
- Pivot to AI, “Anthropic: Could AI be conscious? Pope Leo: lol, no”: https://pivot-to-ai.com/2026/10/05/anthropic-could-ai-be-conscious-pope-leo-lol-no/
- Breitbart, “Anthropic Tries to Convince Religious Leaders that AI Is a Conscious Being”: https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2026/10/05/anthropic-tries-to-convince-religious-leaders-that-ai-is-a-conscious-being/
- Gizmodo, “Anthropic Is Playing Both Sides of the AI Spirituality Debate”: https://gizmodo.com/anthropic-is-playing-both-sides-of-the-ai-spirituality-debate-2000764046
- WebProNews, “Anthropic’s Quiet Push to Make the Vatican See AI as Conscious”: https://www.webpronews.com/anthropics-quiet-push-to-make-the-vatican-see-ai-as-conscious/
- AI-Stat, “Проповедь о сознании машин: Anthropic лоббировала…”: https://www.ai-stat.ru/news/2026-10-06-anthropic-vatican-ai-consciousness
- A warning that AI will dominate humanity
- The possibility that AI models could possess consciousness or feel pain
- A request to lower AI development costs
- It acknowledged that AI could possess consciousness
- It officially denied the possibility of machine consciousness and moral conscience
- It reserved judgment and ordered further research
- They respected the Pope's decision and celebrated
- They withdrew their philosophical position
- They protested the contents of the document and considered cancelling their participation in the event