Subvolts take Explore how AI aligns with specific religious values, from theology to digitized archives. Nov 8, 2025 - Developers
- Learn about training AI models from scratch for specific value systems and optimizing multilingual capabilities.
- Business
- Discover how niche AI applications can serve global markets and digitize valuable archives.
- Everyday users
- Understand how AI can be aligned with religious or specific value systems, impacting its use.
This is a solid interview discussing a unique application of AI alignment with specific religious values.
What is Catholic AI? Technology Meets Theology, with Matthew Harvey Sanders, CEO of Longbeard
Audio streams from Erik Torenberg, Nathan Labenz. Your place is remembered on this device.
From Subvolts
Summary and analysis by Subvolts editorial, AI-assisted.
Matthew Harvey Sanders, CEO of Long Beard, discusses "Catholic AI," a field serving users globally. The episode explores the Church's historical views on technology, AI consciousness, and transhumanism, referencing Pope Francis. It also covers Long Beard's technical work, including training theological models and digitizing Vatican archives.
This episode looks at AI built for a specific religious viewpoint, like Catholicism. It explains how AI can be trained to fit religious ideas and even help organize old church documents.
This episode is for anyone interested in how AI can be aligned with specific value systems beyond general intelligence. It illustrates the practical application of AI in niche domains, showing how models can be trained for particular purposes, like theological alignment. Listeners learn about digitizing historical archives and optimizing multilingual models, offering a glimpse into specialized AI development that contrasts with the broad pursuits of frontier labs.
- HostNathan Labenz
- GuestMatthew Harvey SandersCEO, Long Beard
- Guest: Matthew Harvey Sanders, CEO of Long Beard
- Episode Title: What is Catholic AI? Technology Meets Theology
- Show: The Cognitive Revolution
- Length: 114 minutes
- Catholic AI Reach: Users in 165 countries
Matthew Harvey Sanders, founder and CEO of Long Beard, introduces "Catholic AI," a rapidly growing field serving users in 165 countries. He delves into the philosophical and theological dimensions, discussing the Church's historical perspective on technology, human flourishing, and its stance on AI consciousness and transhumanism, including Pope Francis's insights. The conversation then explores Long Beard's technical innovations, such as training models from scratch for theological alignment, digitizing Vatican archives, and optimizing multilingual models. This episode offers a compelling look at how AI is being tailored to specific value systems, illustrating the orthogonality thesis and instrumental convergence in action.
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PRODUCED BY:
CHAPTERS:
(00:00) About the Episode
(03:16) Building Catholic AI
(06:43) The Popes on AI
(12:42) A Vision for Flourishing (Part 1)
(17:27) Sponsors: Shopify | Tasklet
(20:35) A Vision for Flourishing (Part 2)
(20:36) Imagining a Post-Work Future
(27:21) AI: Tool or Creature?
(36:33) Intelligence vs. Sentience (Part 1)
(38:10) Sponsor: Linear
(39:39) Intelligence vs. Sentience (Part 2)
(47:03) Simulation, Faith, and Conversion
(51:32) Existential Risk & Antichrist
(58:35) The Longbeard Origin Story
(01:03:04) Engineering Magisterium AI
(01:12:17) Open Source Model Strategy
(01:18:34) Longbeard's Business Model
(01:23:37) Training a Model From Scratch
(01:32:16) Safety, Evals, and Trust
(01:39:42) Responsible AI Development
(01:48:16) Aligning to Human Flourishing
(01:53:46) Outro
SOCIAL LINKS:
Website: https://www.cognitiverevolution.ai
Twitter (Podcast): https://x.com/cogrev_podcast
Twitter (Nathan): https://x.com/labenz
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/nathanlabenz/
Youtube: https://youtube.com/@CognitiveRevolutionPodcast
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/the-cognitive-revolution-ai-builders-researchers-and/
- orthogonality thesis
- Matthew Harvey Sanders
- The idea that AI's goals can be independent of its intelligence level.
- instrumental convergence
- Matthew Harvey Sanders
- The tendency for AI systems to pursue similar subgoals, regardless of their ultimate objective.
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Questions people ask
- What is Catholic AI?
- Catholic AI is a rapidly growing field that serves users in 165 countries, tailoring AI to specific value systems, particularly within a Catholic theological framework.
- What technical work is Long Beard doing?
- Long Beard trains AI models from scratch for theological alignment, digitizes Vatican archives, and optimizes multilingual models.
Page generated Oct 19, 2026. Summaries are Subvolts' own; the audio, artwork and notes belong to Erik Torenberg, Nathan Labenz.