Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah reportedly proposed pulling the company out of Pope Leo XIV’s AI encyclical launch because its text rejected machine consciousness.

A Vatican organizer told the NYT that Olah raised the idea after reading an advance copy of Magnifica Humanitas, days before the May 25 event.

He ultimately attended. Two participants said Olah and his team privately lobbied the pope’s advisers to take possible AI consciousness seriously.

On stage, Olah said: “We find internal states that functionally mirror joy, satisfaction, fear, grief and unease.”