Taking AI Welfare Seriously

​In this talk our guest, Jeff Sebo, Associate Professor at New York University, argues that there is a realistic possibility that some AI systems will be conscious and/or robustly agentic in the near future.

That means that the prospect of AI welfare and moral patienthood, i.e. of AI systems with their own interests and moral significance, is no longer an issue only for sci-fi or the distant future.

It is an issue for the near future, and AI companies have a responsibility to start taking it seriously. Jeff also recommend three early steps that AI companies can take.

They can:
- acknowledge that AI welfare is an important and difficult issue (and ensure that language model outputs do the same);
- start assessing AI systems for evidence of consciousness and robust agency;
- prepare policies and procedures for treating AI systems with an appropriate level of moral concern.

This talk is based on a 2024 multi-author report that you can find here.

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