The Vatican vs. AI
The Pope dominated tech headlines this week. Back in May, he published an encyclical called Magnifica Humanitas, outlining what humanity must do to protect itself in the age of AI. According to a New York Times report, Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah and his team held lobbying meetings with theological scholars before the encyclical was published. The document states that AI systems do not have genuine experiences, cannot feel joy or pain, and lack moral consciousness. Chris Olah reportedly disagreed, arguing that AI models may be conscious, citing evidence of emotions like anger and love in models, and suggesting Anthropic should push back against the Pope’s encyclical.
Shortly after the lobbying story broke, The Pope took to X again on AI. In his post, he stated that “algorithms do not carry the spark of humanity” and invited artists and cultural institutions to collaborate with the Vatican in protecting humanity from AI.
One of the strangest tech storylines of 2026: tech bros obsessed with AI consciousness are trying to convince religious scholars that a man-made technology has a soul, while The Pope is being more rational about AI than these supposedly analytical people.
tech.yahoo.com → | vatican.va →
Muse Still Isn’t Getting In
After e-commerce, it’s the travel industry’s turn to decide on AI agents. Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky says travel planning is an experience in itself, and AI agents don’t deliver that. He’s opposed to AI being involved only through a chat interface and believes products haven’t reached optimal integration yet. He says he hasn’t let outside AI assistants into Airbnb, though he did try Muse himself and wasn’t impressed enough to change his mind.
Markets may disagree with Chesky. After Muse announced its travel planning feature, shares of publicly traded travel aggregators like Booking and Expedia dropped. Investors seem to think that if AI agents can compare hotels and flights and make bookings, they won’t need middlemen anymore.
techcrunch.com → | finance.yahoo.com →
Free Claude for Startups
Anthropic announced it has renewed its startup program, offering a wide range of discounts and perks for both Claude usage and other products in the ecosystem. If you fill out the application and get selected, you can access up to $1,000 in Claude Code credits, higher API rate limits than regular users, and up to $45,000 in partner credits and discounts from the startup ecosystem.
Tech Gossip Quiz Night Winner
Last week at tio-space, we hosted a quiz built entirely from the news we’ve covered across 60 issues of this newsletter. @berkayferah got the most answers right and took home the win. Congrats! See you next time.
Quick Hits ⚡️
• The 2026 Nobel Prize in Medicine went to optogenetics — the science of controlling neurons with light — not to the GLP-1 research behind Ozempic, defying most predictions. nobelprize.org →
• French AI company Mistral AI introduced its new model Mistral Large 4 (Le Chonk). mistral.ai →
• South Korean banks were hacked by AI agents. reuters.com →
• Nolla Health‘s AI received prescription authority from Utah, allowing it to prescribe acne medication without a doctor. bloomberg.com →
• Claude can now work directly with Google Docs, Sheets and Slides from its own interface. @claudeai →
📩 Bülteni beğendiysen ve nostaljik hissediyorsan bu
gönderiyi arkadaşlarına forwardlayabilirsin. Kendileri abone
olsalar daha iyi olur tabii.
