Who is Christopher Olah? Anthropic billionaire who spoke about AI alongside Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican

On Monday, Pope Leo XIV made history by becoming the first pope to personally present an encyclical, a letter of great importance in which a pope explains his views on a major moral or social challenge facing the world, to his followers. The leader of the Catholic Church didn’t do so on his own, however. He had help in unveiling the encyclical, called “Magnifica humanitas: on safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence.” Anthropic cofounder and self-proclaimed atheist Christopher Olah was also present. An unlikely speaker The Vatican doesn’t normally invite outsiders to speak, let alone those in the tech industry. But Leo, who has issued numerous warnings on AI before, clearly had an urgent point to make due to “the gravity of the moment,” he said. In the pope’s view, that moment is one where a few powerful people control the fate of the world. Leo didn’t name names, but it seemed clear he was speaking about—and to—the billionaire executives in charge of the largest tech companies. “When such power is concentrated in the hands of a few,” he warned in the letter, “it tends to become opaque and evade public oversight, increasing the risk of distorted forms of development that give rise to new dependencies, exclusions, manipulations and inequalities.” He continued, explaining the importance of “freeing technology from monopolistic control and opening it to discussion and debate” by “making it human-friendly and restoring it to the plurality of human cultures and ways of life.” Interestingly, Leo and Olah weren’t at odds over the point, or any of the views presented in their speeches. In fact, the tech founder and religious leader appeared deeply aligned. Where does Christopher Olah fit in? Out of the gate, Olah presented himself as a different kind of tech founder: one who is cautious, even worried, about AI. He began his speech by calling himself a