According to a New York Times report, Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah threatened to walk out of Pope Leo XIV's AI encyclical event in May over the pope's rejection of machine consciousness. Anthropic has spent months courting theologians and religious scholars under NDAs to get religious backing for the idea that Claude has moral standing.

• Olah threatened to walk out of the papal encyclical launch after the pope refused to endorse the concept of machine consciousness
• Anthropic's team privately lobbied the pope's advisers to "take the possibility of model consciousness seriously," but the pope maintained his position
• Anthropic has been systematically wining and dining theologians and religious scholars under nondisclosure agreements to secure religious legitimacy for Claude's moral status