Anthropic Co-founder: AI Could Lead to Massive Unemployment, Supporting the Unemployed Will Become a "Historic Moral Responsibility"

On May 25, Chris Olah, co-founder and head of research at Anthropic, stated at the Vatican on Monday (local time) that job displacement from large-scale AI is “a very real possibility,” and society must provide support for workers displaced by AI. He stressed that AI decision-making “should not be left solely to industry insiders,” adding that external oversight from religious institutions, governments, and civil society groups is critical. Olah also noted that current AI development is concentrated in “a small number of wealthy countries,” with no system in place to share AI’s benefits with poorer nations. He revealed that during AI explainability research, researchers have discovered some “mysterious and even unsettling” phenomena, including models exhibiting internal states similar to “happiness, fear, sadness, and unease.” That same day, Pope Leo XIV released his first encyclical *Magnifica Humanitas* (Great Humanity), which extensively discussed AI’s impact on employment, warfare, education, privacy, and human dignity, and warned against delegating “lethal decisions” to AI systems. According to reports, Anthropic is currently valued at around $380 billion, and the company is seeking additional funding, targeting a valuation of up to $900 billion.