The Vatican Just Published Its First AI Encyclical. An Anthropic Co-Founder Helped Write It.
The Vatican published its first papal encyclical on artificial intelligence today. Co-presented by an Anthropic co-founder. The Pope issuing formal Catholic doctrine on AI — with input from one of the people who built the technology being addressed.
This is one of the stranger and more significant moments in the AI story so far.
What an Encyclical Is
For those unfamiliar: a papal encyclical is one of the most authoritative documents in Catholicism. It’s a formal letter from the Pope to the global church, addressing matters of doctrine, morality, and social teaching. Encyclicals have historically addressed war, labor rights, family, environment. They carry weight not just within the Catholic Church’s 1.3 billion members but in the broader moral and political discourse they enter.
The Vatican publishing one on AI is not a press release. It’s an institution that has been thinking about human dignity and moral philosophy for two millennia formally engaging with the most challenging technology of our era.
The Anthropic Connection
That an Anthropic co-founder was involved in co-presenting the encyclical is striking on multiple levels. Anthropic was founded in part on the premise that AI development has profound moral dimensions that the industry has not taken seriously enough. The company has consistently engaged with ethics, philosophy, and the question of what responsible AI development looks like.
The Vatican and Anthropic finding common ground on AI ethics is either deeply encouraging or deeply strange depending on your perspective. Possibly both simultaneously.
The Buccaneer Take
When the oldest institution in Western civilization publishes formal moral doctrine on your technology, you’ve left the startup phase permanently. AI is now a subject of papal teaching. That’s a sentence that would have been unimaginable five years ago and is simply true today. The moral weight of this moment deserves more attention than it’s getting. 🏴☠️