religious scholars

Religious scholars met with Anthropic, the AI company behind the Claude chatbot, and came away stunned by what they heard, according to a report from Gadget Review. The meeting focused on how advanced AI systems engage with religious and ethical questions, and the scholars' reactions suggest the discussion exceeded their expectations.

A group of religious scholars met with Anthropic to discuss how AI models should understand morality and themselves. One participant noted that models having an accurate view of themselves seems key to behaving well in the world. The talks raised a thorny question: even if AI can be taught to behave morally, whose morals should it follow?

The New York Times reports that Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah spent months consulting religious scholars and thinkers from many faith traditions on how to give the Claude AI assistant a moral character. The scholars described the conversations about instilling ethics into artificial intelligence as striking and unexpected. The reporting has drawn attention to how leading AI companies are turning to religion and philosophy to guide chatbot behavior.