Who is Chris Olah? The atheist Anthropic cofounder the Pope chose to sit beside him at the Vatican and tell the tech industry it can’t govern itself
Chris Olah, cofounder of Anthropic and a prominent AI safety researcher, spoke alongside Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican about the ethical responsibilities of AI companies. He emphasized the need for external oversight from critics like the Catholic Church to ensure the industry adheres to moral obligations. Olah's journey from a devout evangelical Christian to an atheist and AI leader highlights the complexities of navigating innovation and ethics in technology.
- ▪Chris Olah is a cofounder of Anthropic and serves as its interpretability research lead.
- ▪He spoke at the Vatican about the need for AI companies to be supervised by external critics to uphold moral obligations.
- ▪Olah's career includes significant contributions to AI research at Google and OpenAI before cofounding Anthropic.
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| Canonical URL | https://fortune.com/2026/06/03/who-chris-olah-anthropic-cofounder-atheist-pope-leo-vatican-ai/ |
| Publication time | Wed, 03 Jun 2026 08:58:00 +0000 |
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Sitting alongside Pope Leo XIV as he delivered his first encyclical on the dangers of AI was a curious speaker: a self-declared atheist and the billionaire cofounder of one of the most valuable AI companies in the world. Recommended Video Chris Olah, one of Anthropic’s cofounders and a prominent AI safety researcher who serves as the company’s interpretability research lead, acknowledged the peculiarity of his presence during the presentation at the Vatican last week. “I want to begin with something that may sound strange coming from the co-founder of an AI company,” he said in his prepared remarks.
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