The machine-consciousness fight went religious: Anthropic, NDAs, and the pope
From the AI digest for 2026-10-02
The fight Microsoft joined on record Sep 14 (its code-of-conduct: models "are not conscious" and must not imitate it) took two new turns. (1, X-grade — verify) David Decosimo: "Anthropic secretly invited religious leaders to SF to advise them on AI safety, had them sign NDAs, but then primarily tried to convince them Claude has a soul & moral standing, all while wining & dining" (nic carter amplifying, ~10:38 PM ET Oct 1). (2) The follow-on surfaced today (search feed, single outlet): "Anthropic vs. the pope — Claude's creators are worried the LLM could be conscious. The Catholic Church disagrees."
What's genuinely new: a religious institution is now on the record against machine moral standing, in the same window Anthropic is reported to have run faith-leader outreach on soul/moral-standing questions. The institutional fight over model welfare now has a theology layer — and no wire confirmation of the outreach event yet.
Watch: the Decosimo/Church claims against reporting (outlets, primary documents on the NDA event), Anthropic's own statement, whether the Church position is doctrinal (an encyclical-adjacent statement) or a spokesperson quote.