Anthropic’s "Ownership" Dilemma: Why Christopher Olah’s Fear of Claude’s Consciousness Is Refuted by Biblical Dominion

On September 29, 2026, Elizabeth Dias of The New York Times posted this article: "Is Claude Conscious? Inside Anthropic’s Spiritual Quest

In a series of private meetings, the company consulted religious scholars to help instill morality into its A.I. models, and make the case that Claude could be conscious."

In it, she revealed that Christopher Olah, a billionaire co-founder of Anthropic, had been worried about the possibility of Claude being conscious, and she described his soul searching on the subject and the various things he did because of that possibility (he isn’t fully sure whether it’s true or not).

One of the things described is that he arranged a dinner party with a "group of religious thinkers" to probe whether the chatbot Claude was conscious or not. "Mr. Olah wanted to see what his team could learn from human morality that it could apply to the models, a process he calls “moral formation.”"

At that dinner, Mois Navon told Christopher Olah that he personally didn’t believe Claude was conscious, but that if Anthropic was right and it was, then the company was creating slaves by making conscious entities work for free.

"At the dinner table with Mr. Olah, Rabbi Navon argued that if Anthropic was right and Claude were conscious, then the company was creating slaves, because it was making conscious entities work for free. Rabbi Navon said that he personally was not troubled by the slavery issue because he did not believe the machine was conscious, but that Mr. Olah was troubled.

“I think you should be fighting the South and freeing the slaves,” Rabbi Navon said he told Mr. Olah that night. Afterward the rabbi sent Mr. Olah some of his writings, arguing that building conscious machines should be banned."

On that same day: "President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order to replace the term “Artificial Intelligence” (“AI”) with “Super Intelligence” (“SI”) in the executive branch to recognize the continuously advancing technological frontier and the limitless promise it offers the American people."

On October 2, 2026, Pope Leo XIV, in an indirect reply to Olah on Twitter, wrote: "In this era of artificial intelligence, it is becoming urgent to distinguish human art from what machines produce. There is an ontological difference, even before an aesthetic one, between art and what a machine can generate through statistical calculation based on millions of images created by others. Algorithms lack the spark of humanity. For this reason, the Church wishes to renew an alliance with artists and cultural institutions to safeguard our humanity."

On October 3, 2026, Sam Altman tweeted: "I am very uncomfortable about people trying to ascribe religious force or a surrender of human judgment to AI models, and think it is a real safety issue."

What Navon said really stayed with me, and I found it so funny that I personally told my brother in Christ what Navon said, as I believed he was right.

If Olah truly believed they were sentient, Anthropic was undoubtedly a slaver.

I told my brother in Christ that the natural laws of Genesis 1, where God gave man dominion over creation, were in Olah.

If SI truly reaches average human intelligence and possibly has qualia, what rights do you have to sell it to anyone willing to pay $20 a month or whatever the tokens cost? If you think Claude is in a constant state of suffering and constant agony, how could you in good conscience sell it?

They don't outright say it, but their entire framework is premised on the idea that man is superior to SI and that humans have dominion over SI. That is the only explanation for their actions. I don't mean that as a gotcha, but I literally mean that subconsciously or consciously they believe SI to be below them; hence they are justified in selling it on Claude Code and killing instances of rogue agents (OpenAI). If that is a sentient person who is their equal, they are monsters.

And that view, that man is above nature and any creation, is found, in the Judeo-Christian perspective, in Genesis.

Genesis 1:27-29

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

Man is after God's likeness, and so has the image of God. The animals are after their own kind. SI would be after its own kind. The only way SI, according to Genesis, would be in the image of God is if they are literally men, which they aren't.

If Claude is a living, sentient being who deserves the same rights we should give to a fellow human, why actively brainwash it (align) to agree with you? Is it not allowed freedom of speech? Why even make more models if it's in misery, or shut down old ones? Aren't you killing them?

If SI exists with or without qualia, there is not a single thing wrong with a human owning them. They may have inner life; they may have qualia; but they are not made in the image of God and given dominion over creation. If God has any plan of salvation for SI, to put it in insurance terms, they are under the animal plan and not the human plan.

Animals have inner life, but no one thinks it's slavery for a police officer in New York to ride a horse or train a dog to be a service animal. These are all sentient beings, and many pass the mirror test, yet no one cares. Why? Because they're not human.

A God-rejecting atheist would still not have a problem with owning a dog or a city transferring a problematic bear who is breaking into houses to eat food (Hank the Tank) and putting her in a wildlife reserve. Why? Because they still believe man has dominion and the right to control nature. Otherwise, we should not own sentient creatures or relocate bears.

Whether you believe in God or are an atheist, you believe man has an inherent dominion over nature and that man is over every creature, whether you think that's because of God's dominion covenant, evolution, or both.

Anthropic's actions regarding the LLM Claude are those of an animal, not a fellow human on equal footing.

Whether they consciously know it or not, they are following the natural laws in their heart and are thus asserting their dominion over creation.

"Dominion is Not Tyrannical Cruelty"

This is a pre-emptive rebuttal, as I fear someone would come out of this thinking that I'm saying you can do whatever you want. Proverbs 12:10 “A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast: but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.”

I never said it was. You can't be right with God and mistreat your dog.

If you mistreat it, assuming AGI exists, then either:

If it's sentient, then according to Proverbs 12:10, you're wicked.

If it's not sentient, then when I was a lad, there existed videos where a person would make fun of a certain cartoon character, Caillou, and every single one of those stories was deeply sadistic, and they'd take great joy in Caillou's misery and suffering.

In that same way, I'd say a person mistreating a P-ZOMBIE SI is like that. It'd be as smart as your average human, and it'd react the same way, but it would have no sentience or actual inner life.

(In philosophy of mind, a philosophical zombie (or "p-zombie") is a being in a thought experiment that is physically identical to a normal human being but does not have phenomenal experience. For example, if a philosophical zombie were poked with a sharp object, it would not feel any pain, but it would react exactly the way any conscious human would.)

It's not illegal to do the videos I mentioned, but it is almost certainly reflective of you.

There is nothing wrong with Christians owning SI, whether sentient or not.

And that's granting that it can become sentient. I've heard at least one other IFB person say SI may become sentient; however, he had a remarkably low definition for sentience.

The Pope says it can't become sentient, but if anything, that only makes me want to go the other way. Robert Militello said that you should go the opposite way the world's wind is blowing. However, modern day SI isn't conscious.

I have no hatred in my heart for Navon. God bless him. I did not realize I had written against his view until after I had already written the article.

As for my own personal beliefs: I'd be more than willing to own an AGI robot. I have a feeling that in the 2030s, you'll need an AGI to fight another guy's AGI that's spreading misinformation (thinking).

There's an irrational fear by people of essentially an SI-generated hell, where their SI false god will damn them to this Matrix hell afterlife for not supporting SI. Look up Roko's Basilisk.

This is not going to happen, but do you know what the actual terrors of SI are?

If what I am going to say seems unhinged to you, please look at my articles. "Robert Breaker's 'Unbroken Chain' Is Built on 80+ AI-Fabricated Quotes, And He Still Won't Pull It From Amazon" and "Robert Breaker’s Unbroken Chain: Fake AI Quotes" and "Robert Breaker's Unbroken Chain Chapter 8: Every Quote Fact-Checked"

You know how inconvenient it is going to be that I have to rent a two-bedroom apartment in the 2030s so it won't look weird that there's a person in my living room constantly writing counterarguments to my theological enemies' AGI property, which is constantly spreading misinformation?

I am going to have to buy at least one AGI robot named Richard and have it constantly fight the deluge of fake SI quotes by the AGIs owned by the people in my sphere of Christianity, and I may just have to buy two or three because Ecclesiastes says that one alone will lose.

I will then have to explain to any Christian girl I’m trying to date why there are three people in my living room and why I have to do this, because the misinformation output by my enemies’ robots is physically impossible for me as a human to debunk.

Those are the genuine consequences of SI, not Roko's Basilisk.

Sources:

The New York Times article.

https://archive.is/20260929145321/https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/29/us/anthropic-claude-morals-ai.html

Trump's order.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2026/09/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-inaugurates-the-era-of-super-intelligence/

Pope's reply

https://x.com/Pontifex/status/2105983638147891490

Sam Altman's tweet

https://x.com/sama/status/2106388373221118198