I don't know what's the deal with high tech and religion lately. First thiel and his antichrist bullshit, now anthropic and the pope? What's going on? Can someone who's more in enlighten me?

There's a long and involved history of people in SV with wacky pseudo-religious beliefs. Back in the day it was Buddhist-influenced, then rationalism, now accelerationism is popular, and so on.

I believe most of this is just performative marketing that someone thought might be good idea... Getting big enough public persona to say that LLM is conscious at first thought sounds like very good sell...

The parasitic rich are so out of touch they want to steal religions next. They also could recognize it makes sense strategically to gain the trust of the religious since that group is generally more vulnerable to manipulation.

The Thiel antichrist thing was a reverse Streisand effect to block out the idea from the internet that he himself is the antichrist.

That idea is now ungoogleable

It just automagically broadens your support base if you can get a religious justification going. It's an attempt at arguing yourself into more influence.

Religion is a manipulation tool. It makes perfect sense that large tech companies occasionally find that a useful tool.