Catholic Christendom@shiningsweu
"The Pope and the atheist billionaire.
The image of Pope Leo XIII presenting his first encyclical, with the co-founder of Anthropic, Christopher Olah, at his side, just two cardinals away, is destined to remain in the history of Vatican communications for a long time. Anthropic , in fact, is the AI giant that began as a startup and has now become a major player in the market of the future, using chatbots that are increasingly sophisticated. The software it develops, Claude , is a direct competitor to ChatGPT (Open AI) and Gemini (Google) and currently ranks third on the list.
Yesterday’s speech at the Vatican, although not an investiture per se, was interpreted as a high-risk gesture toward Anthropic , almost as if it were ahead of its competitors in the race to position AI products. It is as if Leo XIII had presented his most famous encyclical alongside the then masters of the economy, Giovanni Pirelli or Krupp, the king of cannons. Or as if Paul VI had illustrated his most controversial and prophetic document, Humanae Vitae, alongside the developers of the pharmaceutical company that produced Enovid , the first contraceptive pill. The official presentation of an encyclical is not a conference or seminar on the subject where, cautiously, some outsiders or stakeholders would also be invited.
Olah declares himself an atheist—according to the New York Post , in the past he even attacked Christianity and Benedict XVI— approaches the topic of ethics with the general caution of someone who has not yet fully understood what he is talking about, or perhaps knows it very well. The Vatican presents Olah as: “A person who has chosen to work in the field of AI for the good of humanity.” Dario Amodei, co-founder with Olah , has stated that Anthropic supports the use of AI to defend the United States and democracies, opposing its use in autonomous weapons and mass surveillance on U.S. territory. However, it is undeniable that the military field is one of the most attractive areas for the development of AI—unarmed, but with criteria."
(source: Specola/Infovaticana)
