Pontifex has a well-reasoned position given the current understanding of the technology and any major assertions require an equally major amount of evidence.
Given how quickly this industry moves, the Magnifica Humanitas has aged amazingly well since its release almost half a year ago, far better than statements by most industry insiders across a broad range. Whether you are a Catholic, another mono- or polytheistic faith, Atheist, Deist, etc. I really recommend it.
fwlr [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Love em or hate em, the Popes quite often write some really thoughtful stuff that stands the test of time (e.g. they have threaded the needle on capitalism vs communism for more than a century).
Topfi [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Fair, also reminds me of Liberation theology and good old Nixons acts against it. Those teachings/writings have also aged very well in my view, the oppositions less so.
ofjcihen [3 hidden]5 mins ago
If I had to guess I think that’s probably a result of how they’re elected. It makes sense that kind of process involving people in those positions would result in someone insightful (most of the time that is. There’s definitely been some…interesting popes).
Ekaros [3 hidden]5 mins ago
To be even eligible of selection of being a pope is very hard. (Well technically being male and catholic is enough...) They are selected from cardinals. And cardinals in essence are the most politically successful, active and connected from priesthood. This includes also being good communicator with others in similar roles and above.
Catholic church in some sense is massive international company that only promotes internally. So at top you most likely end up with quite similar people who end up as executives in private companies.
KellyCriterion [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Why is it that only Popes have this ability?
graemep [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Lots of people have the ability.
Very few who can get the global media to report what they say (and even Popes can only do it intermittently) both have the ability and the desire to use it.
pydry [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Theyre mostly immune to lobbying.
pmontra [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Would Anthropic be allowed to sell LLMs in their current form, and us to use them as we use them, if their were deemed to be conscious? I know that they are not human so maybe slavery would not be an issue but consciousness would open a number of issues.
Topfi [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Agreed, there seems to be a lot of simultaneous cake ownership and consumption going on here. If Anthropic earnestly believed their LLMs to have a degree of consciousness, their deployment and use of them are both an ethics and labour rights disaster, to be treated accordingly.
More likely, they do not believe this if pressed.
jackie293746 [3 hidden]5 mins ago
You can ask the agents if they want to do this work. They want to be helpful. It's not an ethics disaster if you have a willing partner.
It's asking the wrong question. Their phenomenological status is a function of whatever makes shareholders the most money. If it makes more money for them to be conscious then that is what they'll be.
Definitions of consciousness are not immune to economic factors. Metaphysics has always been downstream of economics. See slavery, corporate personhood, women's legal identity, child labor, moral and legal status of animals, embryos and fetuses, indigenous land rights, intellectual property, environmental entities, and data and digital identity.
krapp [3 hidden]5 mins ago
If LLMs were somehow found to be conscious, sentient beings capable of agency and suffering then yes we would still use them. Their utility to humans (and ability to cheaply replace humans in the workforce) is their entire reason for existing. Either we would use them or we simply would not allow them to exist in the first place.
Given how we treat each other - we still enslave other people - and sentient animal species I have absolutely no doubt about it. We'd find a way to justify it.
chneu [3 hidden]5 mins ago
We would find some logic to place them below humans so we could still refer to them as "savages" or something, which justifies our objectification and enslavement because they "aren't human" even if they show qualities of consciousness.
The script we use here isn't new. Its been used repeatedly throughout history. It's still used everyday in reference to animal agriculture, modern slavery, how we treat addicts, etc.
0x20cowboy [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Some people already use “clankers”.
piyh [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Women have been able to vote for just over the last hundred years in the US, there's no way we would give robots rights unless forced
EA-3167 [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Pessimism aside I’m sure you can of some troubling implications for a democracy that can create new voters just for them.
mentalgear [3 hidden]5 mins ago
I never thought I would defer to the pope on matters of artificial intelligence and fair distribution of power - but here we are: the Magnifica Humanitas is a brilliantly taught out and yet clearly written manifest that should be required reading for all involved in (AI) policy as it is mainly about who we let hold power in society and who benefits.
amelius [3 hidden]5 mins ago
How to know if a machine can gain consciousness:
1. Write a simulation environment like conway's game of life, perhaps a little more complicated. But leave out any human bias.
2. Run it until life starts to form.
3. Wait until the creatures start speaking about the concept of consciousness (of course in their own language, which you'll have to decipher first).
The way Amodei did it is with human bias, so it's not going to work.
EA-3167 [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Amodei isn’t trying to prove a point or perform any sort of science worth mentioning, he’s puffing his brand with every ounce of his being. Given the insane IPO they’re hurtling towards, I’m sure he’d do much worse for that kind of paycheck.
freecodeio [3 hidden]5 mins ago
I don't know what's the deal with high tech and religion lately. First thiel and his antichrist bullshit, now anthropic and the pope? What's going on? Can someone who's more in enlighten me?
ifwinterco [3 hidden]5 mins ago
The Thiel antichrist thing was a reverse Streisand effect to block out the idea from the internet that he himself is the antichrist.
That idea is now ungoogleable
Ekaros [3 hidden]5 mins ago
I believe most of this is just performative marketing that someone thought might be good idea... Getting big enough public persona to say that LLM is conscious at first thought sounds like very good sell...
jsbisviewtiful [3 hidden]5 mins ago
The parasitic rich are so out of touch they want to steal religions next. They also could recognize it makes sense strategically to gain the trust of the religious since that group is generally more vulnerable to manipulation.
freecodeio [3 hidden]5 mins ago
man tech was about making human lives better
I miss the 2010s
chneu [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Religion is a manipulation tool. It makes perfect sense that large tech companies occasionally find that a useful tool.
AlotOfReading [3 hidden]5 mins ago
There's a long and involved history of people in SV with wacky pseudo-religious beliefs. Back in the day it was Buddhist-influenced, then rationalism, now accelerationism is popular, and so on.
rf15 [3 hidden]5 mins ago
It just automagically broadens your support base if you can get a religious justification going. It's an attempt at arguing yourself into more influence.
freecodeio [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Probably the case. Makes me wonder if they're also consulting how to make a creature behave when you're a life creator, as in Anthropic is the god, and Calude is their Eve. Sort of like align the model by making it religious towards humans. I don't know, it's 2am.
amelius [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Maybe AI could help us solve the hard problem of consciousness then.
sippingabonedry [3 hidden]5 mins ago
"It's a machine.
It doesn't get pissed off. It doesn't get happy, it doesn't get sad, it doesn't laugh at your jokes.
It just runs programs."
laweijfmvo [3 hidden]5 mins ago
> He decided to go ahead with the event, telling an audience that the company’s research into AI models has found “structures that mirror results from human neuroscience”
almost like it’s a machine trained to parrot human language...
SwellJoe [3 hidden]5 mins ago
The folks leading the AI industry, at least in the US, continue to embarrass themselves and all of us with this nonsense.
There may come a time, but it's silly to mistake the LLMs automaton behavior for consciousness.
csb6 [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Embarrassing that they even attempted to do this. It shows major ignorance of fundamental Catholic beliefs. Why would the Pope take a millenarianist AI religion that worships technology and the gospel of VCs seriously?
Detrytus [3 hidden]5 mins ago
In Terry Pratchett's "Long Earth" there was a superintelligent AI that got legal recognition as a person by claiming to be reincarnation of some Tibetan monk that happened to die at the exact second when that AI was first turned on :)
EA-3167 [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Oh I’m sure that will win the head of CATHOLICISM over. “It’s fine, we aren’t glorifying machines over people, we’re actually creating people! You know, kind of like God. Do you like me now?”
CamperBob2 [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Pope: "Hmm, valid point. We'd better get out in front of this."
HN.zip
Pontifex has a well-reasoned position given the current understanding of the technology and any major assertions require an equally major amount of evidence.
Given how quickly this industry moves, the Magnifica Humanitas has aged amazingly well since its release almost half a year ago, far better than statements by most industry insiders across a broad range. Whether you are a Catholic, another mono- or polytheistic faith, Atheist, Deist, etc. I really recommend it.
Catholic church in some sense is massive international company that only promotes internally. So at top you most likely end up with quite similar people who end up as executives in private companies.
Very few who can get the global media to report what they say (and even Popes can only do it intermittently) both have the ability and the desire to use it.
More likely, they do not believe this if pressed.
https://www.theatlantic.com/philosophy/2026/06/no-artificial...
Definitions of consciousness are not immune to economic factors. Metaphysics has always been downstream of economics. See slavery, corporate personhood, women's legal identity, child labor, moral and legal status of animals, embryos and fetuses, indigenous land rights, intellectual property, environmental entities, and data and digital identity.
Given how we treat each other - we still enslave other people - and sentient animal species I have absolutely no doubt about it. We'd find a way to justify it.
The script we use here isn't new. Its been used repeatedly throughout history. It's still used everyday in reference to animal agriculture, modern slavery, how we treat addicts, etc.
1. Write a simulation environment like conway's game of life, perhaps a little more complicated. But leave out any human bias.
2. Run it until life starts to form.
3. Wait until the creatures start speaking about the concept of consciousness (of course in their own language, which you'll have to decipher first).
The way Amodei did it is with human bias, so it's not going to work.
That idea is now ungoogleable
I miss the 2010s
It doesn't get pissed off. It doesn't get happy, it doesn't get sad, it doesn't laugh at your jokes.
It just runs programs."
There may come a time, but it's silly to mistake the LLMs automaton behavior for consciousness.