At the launch of Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical, Anthropic co-founder says AI models show signs of introspection

Canadian AI developer and Anthropic co-founder Christopher Olah presented Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical “Magnifica Humanitas” alongside him.

True to Anthropic’s brand, Olah couldn’t resist suggesting that today’s language models might be more than just statistical systems. “AI systems are not engineered the way a bridge or an airplane is engineered,” he said “[…] They are grown on a structure roughly modeled after the brain on an enormous inheritance of human thought and speech.” And, “as the Holy Father observes, they remain, in important ways, mysterious even to those of us who create them.”

Citing Anthropic’s internal research, Olah said, “We keep finding things that are mysterious, even unsettling. We find structures that mirror results from human neuroscience. We find evidence of introspection. We find internal states that functionally mirror joy, satisfaction, fear, grief, and unease.” He also warned: “There is a real possibility that AI will displace human labor at a very large scale.” Olah’s full presentation is available in the video below (starting at 1:01:40).

The Pope says what you’d expect

The Pope’s proposals don’t hold many surprises. He called on everyone along the AI chain to take responsibility, warning that AI is “never neutral” because “it takes on the characteristics of those who devise, finance, regulate and use it.”

The encyclical reads more cautiously than Olah’s claims about introspection and emotion-like states. “We must avoid the misconception of equating this type of ‘intelligence’ with that of human beings,” it states. “These systems merely imitate certain functions of human intelligence.”

AI systems “do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships and do not know from within what love, work, friendship or responsibility mean.” The encyclical also flags AI’s environmental cost, pointing to the “enormous amounts of energy and water” needed for data centers and calling for more efficient systems.

The Pope also weighed in on AI in a military context. Deadly or irreversible decisions should not be handed off to machines. “No algorithm can make war morally acceptable.” He criticized the alignment discourse, too. “A more moral AI is not enough if that morality is determined by a few.” Instead of abstract ethics, he called for strong laws and independent oversight.

Leo XIV, the first American pope, has made AI a central theme of his pontificate. Anthropic and other Silicon Valley AI companies regularly meet with religious leaders to discuss the use of AI. The Pope is one of them.

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