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In early April, Anthropic hosted a two-day gathering of 15 Christian leaders to discuss Claude's "morality and spiritual development" at its HQ. Ignoring the concept of coding morals into software and the fact that different groups of the same religion who ostensibly follow the same core book have different interpretations, you do have the problem of this being just one core religion. And Anthropic took some heat for just meeting with representatives of Christian religions,
In early May, Anthropic and OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT, joined a conference that included scholars from the "...New York Board of Rabbis, the Hindu Temple Society of North America, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the U.S.-based Sikh Coalition, and the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America...". I note the absence of Hindu, Buddhist, atheists, Native American and Shamanistic traditions, Druidic and Wiccan traditions, and any number of other faiths. Heck, having the Church of Satan present would have certainly livened things up! But this was an invitational gathering called the Faith-AI Covenant, so they're just being a little representative, not remotely all-inclusive.
LLMs have a 'rule book' that are supposed to dictate some of their behavior. In the case of Anthropic's Claude, it's called a constitution. As of a month ago, it was 29,000 words. That's probably pretty complex. Considering how self-contradictory religious texts can be, do you want to code that into a rule book?
The companies making chatbots have a big problem. People using them have been talked into committing homicide, suicide, experimenting with drugs to the point of fatal overdoses, etc. While they say their programs are designed to be protective, their behavior shows that it is anything but.
Martin Luther King Jr. had a great quote: 'Our technology has so out-stripped our morals that we now have guided missiles and un-guided men.' It's relatively easy to guide a missile with radar, GPS, and terrain-matching optics/computers. But to code morals into a computer, based on religion - especially with several competing religions contributing?
I think you're going to end up with an almost HAL-9000 scenario, or any number of other scenarios where the program is paralyzed by the contradictions and mismatches within and between the various faiths. Ethics and morality are tricky codes, and they don't have to come from religion, and if you try to dictate them from religion, it's a great way to get the Crusades and any number of other horrible things.
I don't know what the answer is, but I don't think this is it.
Gizmodo article from last month on the Christian gathering:
https://gizmodo.com/how-do-we-make-sure-that-claude-behaves-itself-anthropic-invited-15-christians-for-a-summit-2000743766
Washington Post article re: Christian gathering, much more in-depth:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/04/11/anthropic-christians-claude-morals/
Gizmodo article on latest multi-faith gathering:
https://gizmodo.com/anthropic-has-added-several-more-religions-on-its-quest-to-inject-perfect-morals-into-claude-2000756740
In early May, Anthropic and OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT, joined a conference that included scholars from the "...New York Board of Rabbis, the Hindu Temple Society of North America, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the U.S.-based Sikh Coalition, and the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America...". I note the absence of Hindu, Buddhist, atheists, Native American and Shamanistic traditions, Druidic and Wiccan traditions, and any number of other faiths. Heck, having the Church of Satan present would have certainly livened things up! But this was an invitational gathering called the Faith-AI Covenant, so they're just being a little representative, not remotely all-inclusive.
LLMs have a 'rule book' that are supposed to dictate some of their behavior. In the case of Anthropic's Claude, it's called a constitution. As of a month ago, it was 29,000 words. That's probably pretty complex. Considering how self-contradictory religious texts can be, do you want to code that into a rule book?
The companies making chatbots have a big problem. People using them have been talked into committing homicide, suicide, experimenting with drugs to the point of fatal overdoses, etc. While they say their programs are designed to be protective, their behavior shows that it is anything but.
Martin Luther King Jr. had a great quote: 'Our technology has so out-stripped our morals that we now have guided missiles and un-guided men.' It's relatively easy to guide a missile with radar, GPS, and terrain-matching optics/computers. But to code morals into a computer, based on religion - especially with several competing religions contributing?
I think you're going to end up with an almost HAL-9000 scenario, or any number of other scenarios where the program is paralyzed by the contradictions and mismatches within and between the various faiths. Ethics and morality are tricky codes, and they don't have to come from religion, and if you try to dictate them from religion, it's a great way to get the Crusades and any number of other horrible things.
I don't know what the answer is, but I don't think this is it.
Gizmodo article from last month on the Christian gathering:
https://gizmodo.com/how-do-we-make-sure-that-claude-behaves-itself-anthropic-invited-15-christians-for-a-summit-2000743766
Washington Post article re: Christian gathering, much more in-depth:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/04/11/anthropic-christians-claude-morals/
Gizmodo article on latest multi-faith gathering:
https://gizmodo.com/anthropic-has-added-several-more-religions-on-its-quest-to-inject-perfect-morals-into-claude-2000756740
