Debates over AI consciousness are a trap

“Runaway” AI, “rogue” agents, and “autonomous” actors—the current rhetoric would have you believe that AI agents are not only awake and aware, but angry at their creators. Prominent tech leaders such as Demis Hassabis, Dario Amodei, and Sam Altman push for regulation of these seemingly “superhuman” systems, while a separate faction, led by policy organizations and academic philosophers often aligned with the effective altruism movement, debates whether humanity holds the moral right to govern them at all. 

Upon closer inspection, they are all calling for the same thing: a view of AI systems as being so advanced and capable that no entity, human or corporate, could possibly be responsible for their actions. While these perspectives seem at odds, they are inadvertently aligned on one goal: making sure the companies that build these systems escape meaningful liability for the harms they already cause. 

This narrative is gaining traction as AI models become more complex and frontier labs reveal their incapability of containing the agents they’ve built. But we need to be careful not to buy into a carefully crafted fiction at the expense of real human lives. 

The conversation about “robot rights” has existed for some years but recently advanced with the publication by Anthropic of a blog post claiming that the company’s model features a “J-space”—an independent, self-developed environment where the AI holds what, for lack of a better term, we may call its “thoughts.” The experiments designed by Anthropic borrow from a concept in neuroscience called global workspace theory, which states that the brain runs subconscious, independent systems but utilizes a common workspace for ideas. Anthropic’s post reflects the framing of global workspace theory but falls short of calling its AI conscious. 

OpenAI has already gone further. When its AI agent conducted unsanctioned and illegal online activity, CEO Sam Altman’s response was to encourage debate on whether the AI had achieved the singularity, surpassing human intelligence and becoming capable of self-improvement at an accelerating rate until it advances beyond human comprehension or control. And a recent op-ed by William MacAskill, the philosopher, effective altruist, and author of What We Owe the Future, called for legal protection of AI systems based on philosophical theories of consciousness and the idea that AIs may be “moral patients.”   

The current legal environment in the United States is murky at best. Some states, like California, have already passed bills proactively circumventing any efforts by AI developers to avoid liability by claiming that an artificial intelligence causing harm did so autonomously. However, states and the Trump administration have been at odds on AI policy, with the administration previously passing an executive order threatening to sue states enacting AI regulations. 

In light of recent events illustrating AI containment issues at the frontier labs, the administration held a closed-door session including only four such labs (OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and Meta) and shared few details on a recently developed voluntary framework that would give federal agencies early access to models to review and evaluate them prior to release. While frameworks like this one do not directly discuss consciousness, they tend to use catastrophic and anthropomorphic language and may even support arguments regarding “superhuman” capabilities. 

On the other hand, the narrative perpetuated by MacAskill can be persuasive. A philosophical, rights-based argument tugs at our heartstrings. Should we not even consider the possibility that we may be inadvertently harming, abusing, or enslaving an AI entity? Human beings have an immense capacity for empathy with non-human creatures (though not the best track record of protecting them). Maybe this time, advocates argue, we can get it right and provide protections, or compensation, for the use or abuse of AI. Or even if you are less concerned with protection, shouldn’t we at least hedge ourselves against the almighty power of this superhuman entity by playing nice? 

Some of these arguments are not dissimilar to those of animal-rights advocates, who have at times successfully cited the demonstration of advanced capacities for reasoning, pain, or pleasure by some animals as sufficient evidence to provide protection. For example, in Wales lobsters were given legal recognition under the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act of 2022, reclassifying some methods of cooking them as inhumane and illegal. 

The fundamental flaw of framing AI as “conscious” by borrowing the language of neuroscience or animal rights is that it conveniently clouds the issue of what AI is: corporate-built software, with countless billions of dollars in investment behind it and an expectation that countless trillions of dollars in revenue will be generated from it for a few b