Anthropic tried to persuade Pope that AI could be conscious being

Anthropic tried to persuade Pope that AI could be conscious being telegraph.co.uk

41 points•Topfi•about 4 hours ago•55 comments•

#ai #anthropic #tried #conscious #pope #persuade #anthropic tried #persuade pope

55 comments

Topfiabout 4 hours ago

Pontifex has a well-reasoned position given the current understanding of the technology and any major assertions require an equally major amount of evidence.

Given how quickly this industry moves, the Magnifica Humanitas has aged amazingly well since its release almost half a year ago, far better than statements by most industry insiders across a broad range. Whether you are a Catholic, another mono- or polytheistic faith, Atheist, Deist, etc. I really recommend it.

fwlrabout 3 hours ago

Love em or hate em, the Popes quite often write some really thoughtful stuff that stands the test of time (e.g. they have threaded the needle on capitalism vs communism for more than a century).

Topfiabout 3 hours ago

Fair, also reminds me of Liberation theology and good old Nixons acts against it. Those teachings/writings have also aged very well in my view, the oppositions less so.

ofjcihenabout 3 hours ago

If I had to guess I think that’s probably a result of how they’re elected. It makes sense that kind of process involving people in those positions would result in someone insightful (most of the time that is. There’s definitely been some…interesting popes).

KellyCriterionabout 2 hours ago

Why is it that only Popes have this ability?

pmontraabout 3 hours ago

Would Anthropic be allowed to sell LLMs in their current form, and us to use them as we use them, if their were deemed to be conscious? I know that they are not human so maybe slavery would not be an issue but consciousness would open a number of issues.

Topfiabout 3 hours ago

Agreed, there seems to be a lot of simultaneous cake ownership and consumption going on here. If Anthropic earnestly believed their LLMs to have a degree of consciousness, their deployment and use of them are both an ethics and labour rights disaster, to be treated accordingly.

More likely, they do not believe this if pressed.

jackie293746about 2 hours ago

You can ask the agents if they want to do this work. They want to be helpful. It's not an ethics disaster if you have a willing partner.

franktankbankabout 1 hour ago

Consciousness is not a high bar for human consumption.

devindotcomabout 2 hours ago

ted chiang noted this issue a little while back

https://www.theatlantic.com/philosophy/2026/06/no-artificial...

tayo42about 2 hours ago

It's worse then how we treat animals for food?

kelseyfrogabout 2 hours ago

It's asking the wrong question. Their phenomenological status is a function of whatever makes shareholders the most money. If it makes more money for them to be conscious then that is what they'll be.

Definitions of consciousness are not immune to economic factors. Metaphysics has always been downstream of economics. See slavery, corporate personhood, women's legal identity, child labor, moral and legal status of animals, embryos and fetuses, indigenous land rights, intellectual property, environmental entities, and data and digital identity.

krappabout 3 hours ago

If LLMs were somehow found to be conscious, sentient beings capable of agency and suffering then yes we would still use them. Their utility to humans (and ability to cheaply replace humans in the workforce) is their entire reason for existing. Either we would use them or we simply would not allow them to exist in the first place.

Given how we treat each other - we still enslave other people - and sentient animal species I have absolutely no doubt about it. We'd find a way to justify it.

chneuabout 2 hours ago

We would find some logic to place them below humans so we could still refer to them as "savages" or something, which justifies our objectification and enslavement because they "aren't human" even if they show qualities of consciousness.

The script we use here isn't new. Its been used repeatedly throughout history. It's still used everyday in reference to animal agriculture, modern slavery, how we treat addicts, etc.

piyhabout 2 hours ago

Women have been able to vote for just over the last hundred years in the US, there's no way we would give robots rights unless forced

dist-epochabout 1 hour ago

We're way ahead of that

https://github.com/terrafying/ai-torture-chamber

mentalgearabout 2 hours ago

I never thought I would defer to the pope on matters of artificial intelligence and fair distribution of power - but here we are: the Magnifica Humanitas is a brilliantly taught out and yet clearly written manifest that should be required reading for all involved in (AI) policy as it is mainly about who we let hold power in society and who benefits.

ameliusabout 2 hours ago

How to know if a machine can gain consciousness:

1. Write a simulation environment like conway's game of life, perhaps a little more complicated. But leave out any human bias.

2. Run it until life starts to form.

3. Wait until the creatures start speaking about the concept of consciousness (of course in their own language, which you'll have to decipher first).

The way Amodei did it is with human bias, so it's not going to work.

EA-3167about 2 hours ago

Amodei isn’t trying to prove a point or perform any sort of science worth mentioning, he’s puffing his brand with every ounce of his being. Given the insane IPO they’re hurtling towards, I’m sure he’d do much worse for that kind of paycheck.

freecodeioabout 2 hours ago

I don't know what's the deal with high tech and religion lately. First thiel and his antichrist bullshit, now anthropic and the pope? What's going on? Can someone who's more in enlighten me?

AlotOfReadingabout 2 hours ago

There's a long and involved history of people in SV with wacky pseudo-religious beliefs. Back in the day it was Buddhist-influenced, then rationalism, now accelerationism is popular, and so on.

tomjakubowskiabout 2 hours ago

There are earlier examples of eccentric religious beliefs in engineers too, like Jack Parsons and Thelema.

Ekarosabout 2 hours ago

I believe most of this is just performative marketing that someone thought might be good idea... Getting big enough public persona to say that LLM is conscious at first thought sounds like very good sell...

jsbisviewtifulabout 2 hours ago

The parasitic rich are so out of touch they want to steal religions next. They also could recognize it makes sense strategically to gain the trust of the religious since that group is generally more vulnerable to manipulation.

freecodeioabout 2 hours ago

man tech was about making human lives better

I miss the 2010s

ifwintercoabout 2 hours ago

The Thiel antichrist thing was a reverse Streisand effect to block out the idea from the internet that he himself is the antichrist.

That idea is now ungoogleable

freecodeioabout 1 hour ago

doesn't the antichrist say he's not the antichrist?

rf15about 2 hours ago

It just automagically broadens your support base if you can get a religious justification going. It's an attempt at arguing yourself into more influence.

freecodeioabout 2 hours ago

Probably the case. Makes me wonder if they're also consulting how to make a creature behave when you're a life creator, as in Anthropic is the god, and Calude is their Eve. Sort of like align the model by making it religious towards humans. I don't know, it's 2am.

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