Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical on artificial intelligence is slated for a Vatican event next week that will include Anthropic cofounder Christopher Olah – a self-described “atheist” who has written snarky blog posts that criticized religions including Catholicism, The Post has learned.
Olah, a 33-year-old AI researcher who is on the team crafting the Claude chatbot’s “soul document”,” is one of a handful of secular officials tapped to speak at a Monday event. The pope’s missive, titled “Magnifica Humanitas,” will focus on protecting human dignity during the rise of artificial intelligence.
But Olah’s worldview looks like an awkward fit for the Vatican. In August 2010, he shared a link to a website that urged UK residents to protest a visit by Pope Benedict XVI on his personal Twitter account. In February 2011, he shared a link to an Irish Times article with the headline “Charges initiated against Pope for crimes against humanity.”
Olah has also expressed critical views about religion – and specifically Catholicism – in a blog that he maintained as a teenager, which is still viewable online. In one post, Olah described getting into a debate with a group of “evangelists” who “wanted me to know that Jesus loves me.”
“I responded by asking if the Bible was the word of God, and when they said yes, I started asking about how their loving God could have committed genocide and infanticide (Exodus 11), promoted slavery (Leviticus 25), and ordered rape (Judges 21),” Olah wrote in a 2010 post.
“Finally one said that God must exist because he made the World and that any scientist would tell me so (!!!),” he added. “To which I responded that they wouldn’t and that the teleological argument runs into problems with its assumption that the world couldn’t exist forever and, by the way, where did god come from?”
In another post that same year, Olah drew parallels between the story of Jesus and that of the Greek philosopher Socrates, who he described as “eerily similar.”
“One might suspect that Christianity borrowed some of its content,” Olah wrote. “If you (living in the Roman Empire) want to convince your friends that this Jesus figure was executed unjustly, it would be very tempting to make him as similar as possible to Socrates.”
Olah is an “ethical vegan and an atheist,” according to his profile on a website for a movement called “Sentientism,” whose adherents believe in “evidence, reason and compassion for all sentient beings.”
The Post reached out to Olah, Anthropic and the Vatican for comment.
“It is disappointing that secularists are the centerpiece of this event,” said Nathan Leamer, executive director of the advocacy group Build American AI and himself a Christian. “We should be leaning on those who believe in the eternal to guide this discourse – not a person who believes they are God.”
A veteran of OpenAI and Google, Olah has also expressed support for Open Philanthropy, a group at the forefront of the controversial “Effective Altruism” movement, writing on X in February 2018 that he would “seriously consider working there” if he wasn’t working on AI.
Olah is a key member of Anthropic’s team of in-house philosophers who built what employees call Claude’s “soul document,” which governs the chatbot’s moral compass. In April, he was featured in an Atlantic magazine article titled “Why Silicon Valley Is Turning To The Catholic Church.”
In the article, Olah is described as an atheist who believes Claude is a “thinking, feeling entity in need of ‘moral formation.’” At the same time, Olah revealed that his team had contacted Catholic officials, including a priest, a bishop and a theologian, for feedback when crafting the “soul document.”
Olah also reportedly compared his own role at Anthropic to that of a priest who was training Claude on how to “be a good person, in some sense.”
The Vatican has not provided details on what Olah will discuss at the press conference for the encyclical. Other speakers slated to appear at the event include Cardinals Victor Manuel and Michael Czerny, as well as theologians Anna Rowlands and Leocadie Lushombo.
Leo himself is also scheduled to deliver remarks at the press conference.
Olah said he was “honored to speak at the presentation” in a May 18 post on X.
“The questions posed by AI are bigger than the AI community,” Olah wrote. “We urgently need the world – religions, civil society, academics, governments – to participate in creating a positive outcome.”
Vice President JD Vance said on May 19 that he was “looking forward to reading” the AI encyclical, describing it as “a very, very important document.”
The Vatican’s selection of an Anthropic official to speak at an event unveiling its views on AI could kick off another rift with the Trump administration. Pope Leo has been vocally critical of policies embraced by President Trump, including the US war in Iran and the administration’s immigration policies. Trump has said he is “not a fan” of Leo.
At the same time, Trump remains at loggerheads with Anthropic, which is currently suing his administration after the Department of War labeled the company a supply chain risk. The president has described Anthropic’s leadership, including CEO Dario Amodei, as “left wing nutjobs.”
