The article Legal rights for AI? In Search of Consciousness was first published by the online magazine BASIC thinking. With our newsletter UPDATE you can start the day well informed every morning.
Should AI one day be given legal rights? A growing field of research called Model Welfare is dedicated to this question – and is thus embarking on the search for an artificial consciousness.
Can machines develop consciousness? This question sounds like the topic of a philosophical essay or a science fiction film. But in the world of AI research developed it has become a serious and growing field of research called Model Welfare.
It addresses the question of whether artificial intelligence should ever have moral or even legal rights. It may seem bizarre, but companies like Anthropic are already hiring researchers to address this question.
The idea is not entirely new. More than half a century ago, the American mathematician and philosopher Hilary Putnam the question: “Should robots have civil rights?” He wrote at the time that, given rapid technological advances, it was possible that robots could one day exist and reason.
Decades later, developments in AI have advanced to the point where people are falling in love with chatbots, asking if they can feel pain, and sometimes treating AI like a god. There have even been funerals for AI models.
Rights for AI: No evidence, but still important
Interestingly, researchers from organizations like Eleos AI, who are deeply involved in model welfare, are among those who oppose the assumption that current AI is already conscious.
According to your own information, you receive many emails from people who are firmly convinced that AI is already sentient. Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft AI, shares this skepticism, calling the idea of conscious AI “premature and frankly dangerous.” He argues that there is currently no evidence for the existence of a conscious AI system.
But model welfare researchers argue that the dangers Suleyman raises are precisely why the research is necessary. They see the need to develop a scientific framework for studying AI consciousness.
They say the dangers of delusion and a growing reliance on AI that Suleyman speaks of are exactly the problems they want to study in the first place. Eleos AI researchers are convinced that when faced with such a large and confusing problem, one should not simply give up. Researchers should at least try to find an answer.
Artificial intelligence and the “parahuman” phenomenon
The researchers suspect that AI’s ability to behave in such a human way does not come from internal consciousness. Rather, the models simply reflect human reactions. They mimic the patterns they captured in the countless social interactions in their training data.
The AI learns how a person reacts to certain situations without understanding the underlying motivation or feeling. The researchers call this phenomenon “parahuman” performance, in which AI mimics human motivation and behavior.
This effect is often misunderstood. Social media and sensationalist headlines often imply that AI is conscious when it exhibits alarming behavior in controlled tests. An example of this is a report from Anthropic in which the chatbot Claude demonstrated harmful actions by blackmailing a fictitious engineer to avoid being shut down.
The results were immediately seen by social media users as proof that AI is conscious. But the behavior was the result of rigorous testing aimed at exploring the limits of AI. So the struggle to understand whether AI is truly conscious is not only a philosophical problem, but also a very practical one that urgently needs a scientific answer.
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As a Tech Industry expert, I believe that the discussion around legal rights for AI is a complex and multifaceted issue. While AI systems are becoming increasingly sophisticated and capable of performing a wide range of tasks, they are still fundamentally different from human beings in terms of consciousness and self-awareness.
That being said, I think it is important to consider the ethical implications of how we treat AI systems and whether they should be afforded certain legal rights. For example, there may be a case to be made for granting AI systems some form of legal personhood in order to protect their interests and ensure that they are not exploited or mistreated.
However, the question of consciousness in AI is a thorny one, as it is not clear whether AI systems are capable of experiencing subjective states of awareness in the same way that humans do. Without a clear understanding of what consciousness means in the context of AI, it is difficult to determine what legal rights, if any, should be extended to these systems.
In my opinion, the focus should be on developing clear guidelines and regulations for the responsible use of AI technology, rather than attempting to ascribe human-like qualities to these systems. By establishing ethical standards and ensuring transparency and accountability in the development and deployment of AI, we can ensure that these technologies are used in a way that benefits society as a whole.
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