Coke and Pepsi conned us into believing litter was our fault. This trick is even worse

October 6, 2026 — 7:00pm

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Anthropic, the company behind the Claude series of AI programs, has been wining and dining religious scholars behind a veil of non-disclosure agreements. It is trying to convince them that its AI programs possess a form of consciousness. Building such a consensus would help Anthropic evade criminal or civil charges resulting from harm caused by its software. Australia’s regulators shouldn’t allow themselves to be conned.

Christopher Olah, a 34-year-old co-founder of Anthropic, has been holding private seminars for months with dozens of religious thinkers to explore the possibility of AI consciousness. Attendees have included various Catholic professors, evangelical writers, a scholar of African Indigenous knowledge, a Sikh human rights advocate, a senior cleric of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and an Orthodox rabbi from Israel. The meetings have concluded with dinner at a high-end restaurant and gifts of a handwritten thank-you card, a coffee mug, and a specially bound copy of the AI model’s “constitution”. Anthropic tried to directly lobby the Pope’s advisers in the Vatican but failed when Pope Leo rejected their overtures.

Talk of near-sentient, proto-moral chatbots is snake oil. Anthropic is merely trying to do what other powerful industry groups have done before: frame a problem and propose a solution that suits its interests. Then its people in Congress and the White House can enact laws that ratify that narrative. It is a familiar tactic known as regulatory capture.........

© The Sydney Morning Herald