Anthropic Billionaire Cofounder Joins Pope Leo, Warns AI Job Losses Will Spark "Moral Imperative Of Historic Proportions"
Key takeaways
- Cofounder of Anthropic Christopher Olah attends the presentation of Pope Leo XIV first Encyclical Letter "Magnifica Humanitas" in The Vatican on May 25, 2026.
- He urged the Church to apply its "moral imagination" to questions of human flourishing that “a lab can't answer.”
- "They are not the cold calculating robots we were promised.
Topline Billionaire Anthropic cofounder Chris Olah told an audience inside the Vatican on Monday that mass job losses from artificial intelligence are "a real possibility" and supporting displaced workers will be "a moral imperative of historic proportions," delivering the warning alongside Pope Leo XIV at the unveiling of the Catholic Church’s first major address on AI.
Cofounder of Anthropic Christopher Olah attends the presentation of Pope Leo XIV first Encyclical Letter "Magnifica Humanitas" in The Vatican on May 25, 2026. (Photo by Alberto PIZZOLI / AFP via Getty Images)AFP via Getty ImagesKey FactsOlah, who leads research at Anthropic, the maker of the Claude chatbot and one of the world's most valuable AI startups, conceded that every leading AI lab, his own included, operates inside commercial, geopolitical and personal pressures that "can sometimes conflict with doing the right thing."
He argued outside scrutiny from religious leaders, governments and civil society is essential because no researcher, however well-intentioned, can escape those incentives, telling the room AI decisions "should not be left to people in the industry."