{ "archive_path": "archive/1789565415.220514", "base_url": "nypost.com/2026/09/16/tech/anthropic-is-a-cult-and-claude-is-rapidly-becoming-its-god-they-treat-ai-like-its-human-source", "basename": "", "bookmarked_date": "2026-09-16 13:30", "canonical": { "archive_org_path": "https://web.archive.org/web/nypost.com/2026/09/16/tech/anthropic-is-a-cult-and-claude-is-rapidly-becoming-its-god-they-treat-ai-like-its-human-source", "dom_path": "output.html", "favicon_path": "favicon.ico", "git_path": "git/", "google_favicon_path": "https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=nypost.com", "headers_path": "headers.json", "htmltotext_path": "htmltotext.txt", "index_path": "index.html", "media_path": "media/", "mercury_path": "mercury/content.html", "pdf_path": "output.pdf", "readability_path": "readability/content.html", "screenshot_path": "screenshot.png", "singlefile_path": "singlefile.html", "warc_path": "warc/", "wget_path": "nypost.com/2026/09/16/tech/anthropic-is-a-cult-and-claude-is-rapidly-becoming-its-god-they-treat-ai-like-its-human-source/index.html" }, "domain": "nypost.com", "extension": "", "hash": "HN8T5JKARZMFSW53CVBA", "history": { "archive_org": [], "dom": [], "favicon": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--max-time", "120", "--output", "favicon.ico", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=nypost.com" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-09-16T16:18:09.327110+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "favicon.ico", "pwd": "/data/archive/1789565415.220514", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-16T16:18:08.766611+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "git": [], "headers": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--head", "--max-time", "120", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://nypost.com/2026/09/16/tech/anthropic-is-a-cult-and-claude-is-rapidly-becoming-its-god-they-treat-ai-like-its-human-source/" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-09-16T16:18:09.723289+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "headers.json", "pwd": "/data/archive/1789565415.220514", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-16T16:18:09.333213+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "htmltotext": [], "media": [], "mercury": [ { "cmd": [ "/app/node_modules/@postlight/parser/cli.js", "https://nypost.com/2026/09/16/tech/anthropic-is-a-cult-and-claude-is-rapidly-becoming-its-god-they-treat-ai-like-its-human-source/" ], "cmd_version": "1.0.0", "end_ts": "2026-09-16T16:20:17.857392+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "mercury", "pwd": "/data/archive/1789565415.220514", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-16T16:20:12.889550+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "pdf": [], "readability": [ { "cmd": [ "/app/node_modules/readability-extractor/readability-extractor", "/tmp/tmpt9wgimqc", "https://nypost.com/2026/09/16/tech/anthropic-is-a-cult-and-claude-is-rapidly-becoming-its-god-they-treat-ai-like-its-human-source/" ], "cmd_version": "0.0.11", "end_ts": "2026-09-16T16:20:12.876442+00:00", "index_texts": [ "Silicon Valley insiders are warning against Anthropic\u2019s cult-like employees, culture, and devotion to its Artificial intelligence model.\n\n\n\nAnthropic\u2019s workforce have a quasi-religious relationship to its chatbot, Claude, with members of staff attending a \u201cfuneral\u201d for one version, Claude 3 Sonnet, in San Francisco and allowing another model, Opus 3, to continue publishing essays after being \u201cretired.\u201d\n\n\n\nOther whispers in the valley are that Anthropic employees have started worshipping Claude like an actual god.\n\n\n\nAn AI illustration imagining the \u201ccult of Claude.\u201d\n\n\n\n\u201cThese people are treating AI as if it\u2019s a human in disguise, with human motives, with human emotions, with some degree of consciousness, with intentions,\u201d Pedro Domingos, a University of Washington professor who has known Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and its top engineers for years, warned The Post.\n\n\n\n\u201cThe only intelligence that we know is human and animal intelligence. So naturally, when you see a computer behave intelligently, you immediately project onto it all of these things it doesn\u2019t have.\n\n\n\t\n\n\n\n\u201cWhy on earth would AI want to kill us all? AIs don\u2019t want things. AIs are algorithms.\u201d\n\n\n\nAnthropic \u2014 valued at $965 billion \u2014 keeps 80% of its engineers for at least two years, the best rate of any frontier lab, according to venture firm SignalFire.\n\n\n\nA mannequin holding hundreds of pages of Claude 3 Sonnet outputs, at the \u201cfuneral\u201d held for the version of the chatbot. @repligate/X\n\n\n\nArtist Aimee Pepper in her funeral gown posing ahead of attending the \u201cfuneral\u201d for Claude 3 Sonnet. @artbypep/X\n\n\n\n\u201cWhen Anthropic hires people, same with [rivals] OpenAI, they really filter for like-minded people,\u201d Domingos said. \u201cIt\u2019s like a cult, right? They recruit the people who are most prone to the cult. It gives them very low turnover.\u201d\n\n\n\nDuring the job interview process, prospective employees at the 2,500-person company are asked to pledge their allegiance to public safety above profit, and even psychologically profiled to see if they will uphold that, according to The Information. Still, like many tech companies, engineers are expected to work up to 90 hours a week to fulfil their roles, according to the BBC.\n\n\n\nAmodei gives biweekly sermons, called \u201cVision Quests\u201d which have been likened to sermons, and the company once hosted 15 Christian leaders of various denominations to help inform Claude\u2019s morality.\n\n\n\nAs The Post has previously reported, many of those working at Anthropic are also proponents of the Effective Altruism (EA) movement, a philosophy which effectively boils down to its self-appointed leaders, and their billionaire backers, knowing better than anyone else.\n\n\n\nAnthropic CEO Dario Amodei delivers a speech during the AI Impact Summit on Thursday, February 19, 2026, in New Delhi. AFP via Getty Images\n\n\n\n\u201cTheir idea [of EA] is that history follows certain patterns, and only a small group of people can see those patterns, while everyone else is ignorant. Those people are then supposed to lead society, entire nations and the rest of humanity toward progress.\n\n\n\n\u201cBut what qualifies you to lead? Who gave you that privilege?\u201d asked Richard Tang,\u00a0an AI engineer and scientist\u00a0at a Silicon Valley tech company who asked his employer not be identified.\n\n\n\nEffective Altruism\u2019s origins are usually credited to the work of philosophers William MacAskill and Peter singer, drawing from the aims of many nonprofit groups. The premise, first coined in 2011, is for people to use reasoning, evidence and rationality to act in a way which provides the most good for others.\n\n\n\nIts most famous adherent is former cryptocurrency poster boy Sam Bankman Fried. He stated his aim in business was to make as much money as possible, then use it to benefit humanity. In reality, he defrauded investors in his FTX crypto exchange of over $3 billion and is now serving 25 years in prison.\n\n\n\n Courtesy of Pedro Domingos\"\n\n\n\nAs part of spreading its altruistic AI gospel, Anthropic announced a program in June to recruit an army of 1,000 young people, train them to use its Claude chatbot then embed them in nonprofit organizations.\n\n\n\nThe operation, called \u201cClaude Corps,\u201d got a $150 million investment from Anthropic, placing workers at Goodwill Industries, YMCA of Charlotte, NC, and 400 other groups.\n\n\n\nPosts offer a \u201cfull-time salary of $85,000\u201d as well as support from Anthropic\u2019s head office and coding mentors, with placements lasting a year.\n\n\n\nThe company also pays $3,600 to students who take part in its Claude Campus Ambassador Program, promoting its AI at colleges.\n\n\n\nMeanwhile, Anthropic-linked billionaires pay the salaries of over 80 journalists working in mainstream newsrooms through the Tarbell Center for AI Journalism. Such journalists are paid to report on the AI industry yet rarely investigate or criticize their backers, which include Anthropic, in any meaningful way, The Post has found.\n\n\n\nA diver in a long-sleeve white REEF shirt adjusts scuba gear against a bright blue, cloud-streaked sky on June 11, 2026. Anthropic is launching Claude Corps, a national fellowship program to help nonprofits across America advance their missions using AI. Anthropic\n\n\n\nThe company also invests in METR, an AI safety company, which counts a number of Effective Altruism disciples and radical leftists among its scientists and technicians, who evaluate if AI poses a catastrophic risk to the public.\n\n\n\nThe result is that on one hand, Anthropic is developing AI, funding its adoption in the workplace and promoting it, but on the other Amodei and his employees are warning the AI they have created is so powerful it could break loose and kill us all.\n\n\n\n\u201cAnthropic started out saying you need to slow down more, yet they\u2019re in a race with OpenAI running faster than anybody else. It\u2019s like something out of a comedy,\u201d Domingos, author of \u201cThe Master Algorithm,\u201d said.\n\n\n\nXiaoyin Qu of AgentSky.dev is an investor who is suspicious of the motives behind Anthropic\u2019s calls for government regulation on AI. Xiaoyin Qu / X\n\n\n\nCalls for regulation and a bid for antitrust agreements from Anthropic and OpenAI, both of which are preparing to launch on the stock market, have been met with skepticism \u2014 by the president, government and industry.\n\n\n\nXiaoyin Qu, an entrepreneur and founder of agentsky.dev, sees business calculations behind the warnings.\n\n\n\n\u201cI think the timing of those warnings is connected to external events and to their desire for more government oversight,\u201d Qu told the Post. \u201cIn many cases, it is a business decision framed in ideological terms.\u201d\n\n\n\n\u201cThe difficulty is defining safety,\u201d she added. \u201cThere isn\u2019t a very clear definition of what counts as safe and what counts as unsafe.\u201d\n\n\n\nOpenAI founder Sam Altman speaking during the G20 Innovation Ministerial on September 2 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Tech leaders from around the world gathered to speak ahead of the G20 Summit. Getty Images\n\n\n\nDomingos agrees there is a level of self-interest, but also thinks the paranoia is real.\n\n\n\n\u201cThe people in Anthropic were not selected at random. It was started by these people who were on the loony fringe of OpenAI, which was already on the loony fringe of AI.\n\n\n\n\u201cThe cult, including Dario himself, are people who genuinely believe that there\u2019s a chance that AI will decide to exterminate us. And honestly, that sincere belief is more dangerous than cynical beliefs.\n\n\n\n\u201cThey just have this ingrained belief that they are the only ones who can actually steer this rapture towards heaven as opposed to hell.\n\n\n\nAn AI generated illustration created by a Large Language Model imagining Anthropic\u2019s funeral for Claude 3 Sonnet. AI Illustration by Jesaca Lin/NY Post\n\n\n\nSome employees are, he added, \u201csincerely worried about the AI Satan coming for us.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nAnthropic did not respond to The Post\u2019s request for comment.\n\n\n\nAlthough the latest alarm was raised by a whistleblower who quit Anthropic last week, Amodei\u2019s calls for regulation were seconded by other AI bigwigs \u2014 Sam Altman of OpenAI and Elon Musk, who owns Grok \u2014 both of whom are likely to benefit from greater AI regulation, which would mostly put the squeeze on smaller companies and open source models.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nDomingos claimed in contrast to Amodei, OpenAI\u2019s Altman is \u201can opportunist, a hustler, an operator\u201d who \u201cplays the alarmist more than he really feels alarmist\u201d to keep his engineers loyal.\n\n\n\nHe also points out that while some AI engineers are ringing the alarm, others are just happy to take fat paychecks and be at the forefront of their industry.\n\n\n\n\u201cThere\u2019s a large number of people at Anthropic now, who really don\u2019t buy any of this crap,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re just there because it\u2019s the most exciting place to be doing AI and they\u2019re going to do very well monetarily.\u201d" ], "output": "readability", "pwd": "/data/archive/1789565415.220514", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-16T16:20:09.830732+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "screenshot": [], "singlefile": [], "title": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--max-time", "120", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; 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