As Anthropic prepares for a blockbuster IPO, the company has also been on a mission to instill morality into its A.I. models — which has involved a series of private meetings with religious scholars from across the world.

Today, our guest host Max Read to talks to the Times religion correspondent Elizabeth Dias, the tech reporter Erin Griffith and the opinion writer David Wallace-Wells about the new belief systems taking shape in Silicon Valley, their differences with the Vatican and what it would actually mean for humanity if A.I. systems are conscious.