Anthropic vs OpenAI: Why Claude is reaching out to religious leaders while ChatGPT maker warns against it | Decoded

Anthropic's outreach to religious thinkers to explore AI ethics and Claude's character has drawn attention from rivals. While Sam Altman warned against giving AI religious authority, Microsoft's Mustafa Suleyman raised concerns over training Claude to imitate consciousness

Nearly a month after Sam Altman and Dario Amodei, the CEOs of the world’s two most powerful artificial intelligence (AI) companies, voiced support for slowing down the pace of AI development, citing risks associated with the technology, including human extinction, the two rivals appear to be taking different approaches once again: this time on religion.

Earlier this week, social media was flooded with videos of Swami Sarvapriyananda, a Hindu monk, who reportedly claimed that Anthropic invited him to its headquarters in San Francisco. Sarvapriyananda, of the Ramakrishna Order, currently heads the Vedanta Society of New York, according to IIM Calcutta.

The viral videos brought attention to Anthropic’s reported interactions with religious scholars and philosophers as the company explores moral and ethical questions surrounding AI. In one of the clips, Swami Sarvapriyananda says Anthropic first contacted him for an online interview, clarifying that the invitation was “not for a job.” He was later invited to visit the company’s headquarters in San Francisco.

Why did Anthropic invite a monk? What we know?

According to media reports and viral videos circulating on social media, Sarvapriyananda, in one of the videos, can be heard saying, “It was to train Claude [Anthropic's AI model], something to do with AI ethics...Anthropic itself has pushed hard for ethics in India.” He added that the discussions centred on questions related to AI ethics and Claude's training.

Anthropic backs discussions with religious leaders, thinkers

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Swati Gandhi