Anthropic, the company behind the Claude AI chatbot, is facing scrutiny over reports of a quasi-religious culture surrounding its artificial intelligence models. The claims were highlighted by writer Sean Thomas in The Spectator and have since been picked up by other outlets, including the New York Post, which reported that some insiders describe Anthropic as a company where Claude is increasingly treated like a divine or human-like figure.

The reports point to several unusual examples of attachment to Claude. In 2025, more than 200 people gathered in San Francisco for a symbolic funeral after Anthropic retired Claude 3 Sonnet. Anthropic researcher Amanda Askell attended the event, which included eulogies and other funeral-style elements. Another retired model, Claude Opus 3, has also continued producing essays after being taken offline.

University of Washington professor Pedro Domingos, who has known Anthropic leaders and engineers for years, has raised concerns about the way some people around the company view AI. He told the New York Post that they appear to treat AI “as if it’s a human in disguise,” attributing human motives, emotions, intentions and potentially consciousness to the technology.

Anthropic's internal culture has added fuel to the reports. CEO Dario Amodei conducts twice-monthly company meetings known as “Vision Quests,” where he discusses artificial intelligence, politics, warfare and society. The Information reported that one Anthropic investor described Amodei as being “more of a religious leader than he is a CEO,” while former employees described a company culture built around a strong sense of historic purpose surrounding AI development.

Claude itself is also governed by an unusually extensive set of principles. Anthropic maintains a written “Constitution” that establishes behavioral principles for the model and addresses questions involving ethics, safety, human oversight and the possibility of AI consciousness. Critics argue that the company's approach goes beyond treating Claude as ordinary software and instead encourages people to think about the system in human or moral terms.

The worship claims remain unverified, and there is no established evidence that Anthropic has formally organized a religion around Claude. Still, the combination of reported employee devotion, symbolic rituals surrounding retired models and Anthropic's willingness to discuss AI consciousness has raised questions about how far the company's mission-driven culture may extend. The episode also reflects a broader debate in Silicon Valley over whether increasingly sophisticated AI systems are being treated as tools, partners or something closer to living entities.