Sam Altman warns against giving AI models religious status

Sam Altman would like everyone to stop treating chatbots like they might have souls. The OpenAI CEO said on Saturday that he was “very uncomfortable” with the notion of attributing some form of religious power to AI models. Axios characterized the comment as a veiled shot at Anthropic, the rival lab that has been exploring what it means for an AI to have a moral core. What Altman said, and who he was talking about Altman made the remarks in a post on X on October 3, 2026. He framed the religious attribution of AI not as a matter of taste but as a genuine safety concern. He did not name Anthropic directly. He did not really need to. The timing lined up neatly with a New York Times investigation published September 29-30, 2026. That report detailed an initiative led by Anthropic co-founder Christopher Olah to bring together scholars from a range of religious traditions. Those gatherings reportedly began in Fall 2025. The focus was on how morality might be built into AI systems, including thorny questions about consciousness and moral status. According to Axios, Anthropic has reportedly sought out scholars across faiths to help make the case for models that are moral and conscious. In...