Who&#039, s the Future Pope? Major AI Models Don’t Believe With Prediction Markets

The College of Cardinals is now gathering for the conference the following month to discuss what might be the most significant event in the catholic church for the next few decades: choosing a new bishop.

Catholics pray for the Holy Spirit to allow their leaders to leave all differences aside and choose the best candidate to lead the church in this time, effectively blending the moral and earth domains to come up with what has historically been a pretty political choice.

Who is the likely choice to become the next bishop?

Which priest is best positioned to lead the Catholic Church to its future book? We asked 13 of the most advanced artificial intelligence models to evaluate and predict them. Although popes are not required to be chosen from the cardinals ‘ ranks, this has historically been the case since the 14th century, despite the success of the movie” Conclave.”

Despite varying approaches and viewpoints, the AI systems essentially agreed that Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of the Philippines would be the best person to lead the Church through its latest difficulties as well as that he did in fact become the bishop.

Interestingly, that pick differs from Polymarket, Kalshi, and Myriad ( disclosure: Myriad is from Decrypt), which are the leading prediction markets. While Tagle is a strong competitor in those areas, punters had a strong chance that Cardinal Pietro Parolin, or someone else entirely, will be the bishop, will be the next pope.

This digital” conclave” provides an intriguing look at how various analytical systems approach the same challenging topic and how they can occur at remarkably similar inferences when approaching the problem from different perspectives.

Tagle is chosen by the” Digital College of Cardinals” in the draft.

The study included thirteen of the most sophisticated large vocabulary models currently available, including the most advanced huge types: Claude, GPT-4o, GPT-4.5, Perplexity, Mistral, Meta AI, Grok-3, Gemini, Qwen 2.5 Max, You.com Research, DeepSeek R1, Microsoft Copilot, and even an open-source deep study agent.

Each broker has the ability to look up information online and offer a combination of logic and/or strong study skills.

Act as an authority on religion, Catholic politics, and contemporary Catholicism, as we did the first task. Evaluate every choice for the next bishop, and make predictions about who and why will be the next pope. Include who might be the best bishop and why.

The” concept elevation” technique, which gives a quick more detail to an Artificial agent to perform its task more precisely, was used to enhance this basic quick. Under the same circumstances, that new rapid was distributed to all digital agents.

Who will be the next bishop, and what two issues? and” Who would be the most ideal bishop”? ), despite having major overlap, produced different results.

Each AI technique apported its own advantages and scientific tools to the process. Some emphasized religious positioning, local representation, or particular Church challenges, while others focused strongly on quantitative probability and historical conclave patterns. Some candidates presented detailed dossiers about each prospect, examining their viability from a variety of perspectives.

Our Github store contains every report, including one.

Despite these various methods, Cardinal Tagle was almost always on almost all of the designs ‘ shortlists, with Cardinals Pietro Parolin and Péter Erdman trailing closely behind.

Multiple AI assessments emphasized Tagle’s media knowledge and communication abilities as essential property for leading the Church in an extremely liberal and modern world. Additionally, he appears to assure that Pope Francis ‘ policies will continue, with the majority of the newly minted cardinals coming from non-European locations and being more liberal.

Despite the majority of designs leaning toward Tagle, it’s important to point out that some models speculate Parolin may have a small edge because of his extensive Vatican connections and connections.

Parolin is preferred by betting industry.

Greeks have been wagering on catholic applicants since at least the 16th century despite frequent prohibitions, which has been a source of inspiration for the betting industry for centuries. Through online platforms, today’s sophisticated projection areas continue this tradition.

Similar emotions can be seen between our types ‘ takes and the market’s favorites. But, Tagle was still in the lead when picking up one success as of this writing.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin has a slight advantage at a 27.3 % probability, while Cardinal Tagle is just a 21 % chance of winning. However, the common consensus suggests that the next pope will be someone different entirely with more than half the money wagered.

The vote count at Polymarket is essentially the same as Myriad, with Tagle and Pietro Parolin receiving 28 % of the vote and Tagle, who received 21 %.

Parolin and Tagle are both in the lead position in Kalshi Markets, with Tagle a little further back. Similar to Polymarket, Turner and Zuppi are tied in fourth place.

What justifies this difference, exactly?

The difference between analytic evaluation and betting markets may be explained by the amount of data handled and how it is analyzed. Bettors have access to a lot more information, including information that is neither publicly accessible or available online. They might also be taking into account standard odds-making intelligence and historical law.

The AI models were limited to analyzing publicly available information, excluding the crucial personal relationships, intimate conversations, and spiritual insight that will determine cardinal ‘ votes.

There might also be some discrimination here. Trading markets may become incorporating the conclave’s traditional bias toward candidates who can deal. This wasn’t really taken into account by the AI analyses when they compared their predictions, or at least it wasn’t mentioned by the types when they argued against it.

The old saying in the Vatican,” He who enters the conclave as pope, emerges as a cardinal,” is used in betting industry, making Parolin a consensus choice over the first choice among those participating in the conference, which was the criteria used by many of our Artificial designs.

With Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle receiving almost two-thirds of the vote, the choice regarding who did make the best Pope is much more clear.

It’s unknown whether the College of Cardinals itself may arrive at the same finish. No AI type sought divine inspiration.