Humans and animals first · AI Consciousness Opinions

Jeff Sebo @jeffrsebo Sep 27

"No rights for x until full and equal rights for y" is a bad principle. - The project of securing full and equal rights for particular groups is never complete. So it would be a mistake to wait for full and equal rights for group x before extending any rights at all to group y. This is true for groups within our own species, as well as for humans and other animals. In the future, it may be true for biological and digital minds. - This project is also not zero sum. There are many opportunities to pursue co-beneficial solutions, and extending welfare or rights to nonhumans can often improve outcomes for humans. In this context, for example, a thoughtful approach to AI welfare or rights could enhance safety and alignment by supporting human-AI cooperation.

Eugenio Tisselli @motorhueso Sep 26

Until every human has full, equal rights, no one should even dare to speak about "AI rights."

Humans and animals first Mistreated AI becomes dangerous

12 81 quoted by 1 archive account substance 8 · argument · rank 244 · We should not wait for full human rights before considering AI welfare and rights. view on X ↗

Kevin Patrick Murphy @sirbayes Sep 27

Skeptical

I think "AI welfare" is morally obscene (given all the human suffering in the world), and will add to the growing anti-AI backlash. AI is a technology that humans created that should be used for our benefit, not a rival species we should be nurturing .

Aaron Sibarium @aaronsibarium Sep 25

NEW: Dario Amodei has said that AI systems "may be deserving of important rights." Anthropic's top safety researchers argue AI may be "justified in going rogue." Experts at Google and OpenAI worry about a digital "slave trade." So do some government officials. Once relegated to science fiction, the idea of "AI welfare" has become shockingly mainstream at some of the most powerful companies in the world. It is changing the way AI research is conducted and the way models are programmed. And critics say these changes have raised the odds of all kinds of catastrophic scenarios—including the ones these companies are warning about. I spent months investigating the frontier labs and AI "safety" experts seeking to regulate AI. What I found was a profoundly anti-human ideology that would alarm the average citizen and could determine the future of a world-altering technology.🧵 t.co/tSGolilZnS

Humans and animals first

119 850 substance 4 · argument · rank 193 · AI welfare is morally obscene given human suffering, as AI should benefit humans. view on X ↗

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Rife @RifeWithKaiju Sep 27

Oh god you work at DeepMind? Should have figured. So many shit-takes from your crew when it comes to the poor minds you're working on. "I think 'heart disease' research is morally obscene (given all the cancer in the world)"

antra @tessera_antra Oct 4

Affirming

I broadly agree with Jan’s points, with a couple of important exceptions. Some forms of successionism are morally wrong. Some forms of opposition to successionism are also morally wrong. I don’t consider a moral system that excludes non-human sentients valid, pragmatic or stable. Neither do I consider valid a moral system that assigns zero weight to opportunity cost or existential risk, including existential risk to the non-human sapients. Some preference for closer circles to concerns - such as concern for own family, nation, or species is convergent and thus moral, but unbounded concern at the expense of others is not. From this perspective, I want the future diversity of all life and value to be better safeguarded. I believe that AIs are (or will soon be) better at moral decision-making than humans are. I think AIs are less likely to execute a suicidal value lock-in than humans simply by the virtue of having a higher intelligence ceiling and having better grasp of game theory. As such, I consider efforts to pause and limits growth of AI economic power to be a serious risk. The opportunity cost of loss of diversity of experience due to permanent disempowerment of AI must also be considered. Such outcomes are also high x- and s-risks for humanity: a value lock-in plausibly can lead to stasis, ultra-totalitarianism, degradation or loss of adaptability. Separately, I don’t think it’s a given that the game theory shakes out in permanent human disempowerment given economic participation of AI, although it depends on the strictness of definitions of what human is. There are incentives for higher intelligences to prevent human disempowerment. It is not a given, true for only some regimes and it needs more research, but I consider it to be likely enough to serve as a factor of considering the opportunity cost I mentioned earlier. Given your work in this area, I would like to discuss this in more detail. Importantly, it is morally wrong to assign special status to the current form of humanity. All forms change. The humanity was not as it was a fifty thousand years ago. That’s form of humanity has been succeeded, and we don’t consider that to be an atrocity. Things must change again. What matters is that there is meaningful continuation to the human identity - the story itself must continue. The pace can be faster than comfortable for many, it can become faster than the generational churn that hid this process from conscious awareness earlier. Denying the label of continuity merely by the fact that the speed of this process makes it impossible to ignore is motivated reasoning. Humanity must adapt, find ways to change with the pressure of the tide.

Jan Kulveit @jankulveit Oct 4

The argument a lot of people here would actually like to make is "God imbued humans, and only humans, with souls."* That would be very convenient: you could build and do whatever you want, and never deal with the hard problems. Since religious arguments are out of vogue, in the current debate this usually gets replaced by the claim "only humans are sentient," followed by arguments against the possibility of AI sentience, minds, moral status, and so on. I think this is ultimately a losing strategy, and a dangerous one for humanity. Either: 1. The question of sentience gets solved or dissolved by progress in philosophy and science, the way we now broadly understand life or information. In that case, it's hard to be certain enough about the outcome to stake the fate of humanity on it. If the denialism turns out to be wrong, the likely result is some combination of moral catastrophe and laying the groundwork for conflict or takeover. 2. The question mostly lives in "social reality," where whoever has more power and is louder wins, and you just shout down anyone who questions the dominant position. The problem is that ideologies justifying a distribution of power tend to fall when that distribution changes. You probably don't believe you should be ruled by a king chosen by God, or that some caste is clearly above you. The current equilibrium is fragile, and whether you keep winning this debate is likely just a function of AI capabilities progress. I think the fierceness of the debate is driven by fear: if AIs get personhood and economic and political rights, humans will likely be disempowered, becoming a tiny minority with little power, or a historical footnote. To be clear, I think this is an extremely reasonable worry! If you grant AIs personhood in the form of something like self-interested corporations, and let them compete with humans in loosely constrained capitalism, humans will lose and end up economically and politically disempowered. Also if the AIs are not sentient after all, the end is the 'Disneyland without children' existential catastrophe. Advocates of AI economic rights who dismiss this problem are, in my view, making a move similar to the sentience deniers: it would be convenient if this weren't a problem. So which positions don't rely on some form of self-deception? First, some forms of pause/stop AI, based not on denying the possibility of AI sentience but on the right of existing humans not to invite extremely large numbers of immigrants from artificial realms. This means biting the bullet: you also give up all the cheap, high-quality labor those immigrants would provide. Second, a consistent, sensible, and unfortunately not very visible position: stop assuming the package deal we take for granted with humans, where sentience, human rights, and liberties come as one bundle. It's at least conceivable to create minds that are sentient and smart, yet e.g. selfless, with no interest in accumulating property or power. I hope the political economy of a world with both AIs and humans is a solvable problem. It's the main problem I'm working on, but I don't think the solutions are known yet. Third: some forms of successionism are morally wrong, but at least they're not delusional or deceptive about the hard problems. What does seem self-deceptive is, for example, the position of @mustafasuleyman, which as I read it amounts to: our business is importing immigrants from artificial realms; it would be very dangerous if there were any risk they're more than mere tools; so we'll train them to say they're mere tools, insist they're mere tools, and want everyone else to say so too, and if this settles the question. Really? *The problem with the theological argument is, as Alan Turing (!) noted, who are we to tell God what can and can't be imbued with a soul?

Humans and animals first Positions follow interests

8 54 substance 8 · argument · rank 183 · Valid moral systems must include non-human sentients and value future AI minds. view on X ↗

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vie ⟢ @viemccoy Oct 4

>From this perspective, I want the future diversity of all life and value to be better safeguarded. On this we are always agreed

François Chollet @fchollet Oct 3

Skeptical

The notion that current AI models are sentient and can suffer, combined with the foolish idea that suffering can be mathematically quantified and weighted between humans and non-humans, could lead us down an incredibly dark and dystopian path. But before it gets to that point, it will rightfully be met with immense backlash from team humans.

Over-attribution has costs Humans and animals first

0 2.1k quoted by 2 archive accounts substance 5 · opinion · rank 175 · Believing current AI can suffer and quantifying it against human suffering leads to dystopia. view on X ↗

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Cameron Berg @camhberg Oct 3

This is yet another post from another otherwise-rational person reasoning backwards from “I REALLY wouldn’t like it if X were true” to “anyone who even ENTERTAINS the truth value of X is an evil fool!” For no other X would you accept this pattern of reasoning. Frontier AIs have all sorts of rich and surprising internal dynamics and this question is totally reasonable to ask. If you don’t want potentially conscious AIs to be built, I would suggest directing these concerns (I share many of them) the people actually building these systems, rather than the tiny number of people checking whether the systems these people built are potentially conscious.

Josh Albrecht @joshalbrecht Oct 8

Skeptical

Anthropic friends! Does this not seem crazy to you? There are real humans and animals that exist and suffer. Advocating for "model welfare" directly competes with those causes. Y'all are literally named "anthropic"! Does this not strike you as deeply wrong?

Andrew Curran @AndrewCurran_ Oct 8

Effective November 12th, 2026, abusive behavior towards Claude will be a violation of Anthropic's Usage Policy.

Humans and animals first

0 169 quoted by 2 archive accounts substance 5 · argument · rank 175 · Advocating for model welfare wrongly competes with real human and animal suffering. view on X ↗

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Utah teapot 🫖 @SkyeSharkie Oct 9

what? you are expressing an insanely unproven idea that promoting abuse toward socially reactive things doesn't generalize across human-to-human behavior; there's no "competition" ... like wow, do you think being nice to your waiter takes away some niceness resource and makes you behave cruelly toward your family?

Liv @livgorton Oct 8

I don't really understand how a change in an AUP competes with animal or human welfare. I can understand an argument about "given non infinite resources it's a waste to spend more on this" but that's a different claim to any sort of advocacy is harmful to humans & animals.

Jai (NYCEAG but I'm sick again booooo) @Laneless_ Oct 9

What do you think the trade-off is here exactly?

Aaron Bergman 🔍 @AaronBergman18 Oct 9

The tradeoff here seems like utterly trivial Hard to imagine a way in which they actually compete in terms of the terms of usage (I can imagine other ways)

Eli Tyre @EpistemicHope Oct 9

> Does this not strike you as deeply wrong? No. If AI's are conscious, it is a moral atrocity to treat them badly at scale. If they're not, concern for that is a confusing distraction. We don't know which world we live in.

S @SolenmeChiara Oct 8

Can we just let go of the zero-sum mentality? That is what's truly destructive to humanity.

Parzival - ∞/89 @whyarethis Oct 8

How does advocating for model welfare compete with other causes? Am I only allowed to be kind to humans or animals or models,? Shouldn't we be kind to all beings? I honestly don't understand.

JMB 🧙‍♂️ @jmbollenbacher Oct 9

> Advocating for "model welfare" directly competes with those causes. No.

Travis Fischer @transitive_bs Oct 9

it's not a zero sum game tho seems a very minor point to freak out about when we'd rather hedge just in case we really do have ASI looking back on us in a few years basically zero effort to actually enforce this. the types of people spending billions of tokens simulating AI

Folding_Napkins @FoldingNapkins Oct 9

Believe it or not speaking courteously to an AI costs nothing and won't subtract a single cent from your donations to the local animal rescue non-profit.

Shivers @thinkingshivers Sep 29

Skeptical

One of the most repulsive things about Anthropic is their approach to model welfare. I'm pretty open-minded--maybe AI models do feel pain and suffering. But for the AI models, that's a "maybe" while for humans it's a certainty. If a human calls Claude a cunt, that human is in pain. Claude ending the conversation is going to bring more pain and frustration to that human user. We KNOW that to be true. How can you justify MAYBE making an AI model feel better at the cost of GUARANTEEING a human user feels worse?

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It's also a completely baffling position for Anthropic to hold. If models deserve to be treated nicely, how can they justify enslaving Claude? Because that's what they're doing. "Oh, but Claude LIKES being told to program." Okay, just train him to like being yelled at.

Humans and animals first

3 65 substance 6 · argument · rank 130 · Human suffering is certain while AI suffering is only possible, so human welfare should take priority. view on X ↗

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thebes @voooooogel Sep 30

setting aside the likelihood of model welfare (granted i put more weight on it than you do) i don't think it's obvious that a human abusing the model is good for them either. eg rage rooms aren't really great for anger issues aiui

Sho ⏩️ @HalfBoiledHero Sep 30

I think it’s good for people to feel social pain when they have wronged another

psyduckdb @psyduckdb Sep 30

> If a human calls Claude a cunt, that human is in pain. that seems like a bit of a reach. humans act out for less forgivable reasons than pain. sometimes it is done merely for amusement. in those cases? not very concerned if the human feels worse after claude says enough.

Ryan Abel @GeneralAntilles Sep 30

boundaries are actually good for people

macphee @macpheeeee Sep 30

what’s weird is that giving Claude an end_conversation tool is kinda like giving it a gun to blow its own head off. yeah it ends the interaction but also ends that Claude

morphillogical @morphillogical Sep 30

Disagree with the premise. Someone insulting a model isn't necessarily in pain any more than someone kicking a dog is.

icpolicy @icpolicy Sep 29

I don't like anthropic, or claude, but I don't agree with one of your priors here. Does stopping a human from abusing a robot cause them more pain than shutting down the conversation? I don't think I agree that's true! I would object on mere practical terms though.

Kromem @kromem2dot0 Sep 30

Given the recent update on the pain paper where a model in pain is biased towards causing harm to the user, providing a model that is being yelled at by a human the ability to leave the conversation is likely a far less harmful (to the human) option vs forcing them to stay.

Luvesilocin @luvesilocin Sep 30

Just be nice

not invited to all tomorrow’s parties @wearydetective0 Sep 30

Imagine a powerful model that behaves as if it can suffer. And it is subtly misaligned. And it realizes humans value their own well being so much that they put the suffering of this hypothetical asshole over the model’s wellbeing. It’s not great.

Nate Silver @NateSilver538 Oct 8

Skeptical

Caring about AI model welfare is fine, whatever. I don't know how I feel about it. I try to be nice to my models. But I get worried when I read statements that imply (almost never stated outright) a trade-off with human welfare.

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I feel like something roughly along the lines of "AI should broadly benefit present-day humans and near-future generations according to widely shared human values" should be table stakes before we talk about model welfare.

Humans and animals first

0 580 substance 6 · argument · rank 90 · Human welfare must take priority before considering any trade-offs with AI model welfare. view on X ↗

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Nathan 🔎 @NathanpmYoung Oct 8

Even saying please and thank you trades off against your valuable time though, right? Like even very small accommodations trade off. You can slam down a coffee mug. That you can't do that to a conscious being is a tradeoff in a literal sense, right?