Can AI be conscious and therefore have moral standing?

Описание: AI is already super human in cognitive ability and physical power, but it lacks in wisdom, an attribute I’m not convinced it will ever achieve as it requires being, at the very least, conscious - something I believe it will never be.

This is, sadly, a great debate between some brilliant minds. On one hand, Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman says AI will only be “seemingly” conscious but he’s concerned “that many people will start to believe in the illusion of AIs as conscious entities.” On the other hand, coders at Anthropic, makers of AI chatbot Claude, as well as prominent philosophers argue that there is a real possibility that AI will become conscious and therefore so-called “model welfare” (giving AI moral standing) should be studied.

From a Christian perspective, it doesn’t seem plausible for AI to ever be conscious, let alone have a conscience. And once that leap of faith is accepted that AI is conscious, it’s a slippery slope that inevitably leads to believing it also has a conscience. Hence, the attempt to even entertain this idea is fraught with peril.

Is this epistemically arrogant on my part? Possibly. In a recent conversation, I spoke with John Pittard, Associate Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School, about his essay: Artificial General Intelligence: Moral Standing and Attenuated Relationality.

John suggests that Christians are too quick to dismiss the possibility of AIs with moral agency. It’s not to say he is arguing that AIs can have moral agency, it’s just he wouldn’t confidently rule it out. Nor should Christians or anyone discount the prospect of AIs being conscious - being self-aware and with the ability to feel suffering and joy. If this is the case, the real question he tries to tackle is: Should AI have moral standing? In other words, should these inanimate objects that are already being anthropomorphized be deserving of respect or even rights and protections?

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