CommentLoaderSave StorySave this storyCommentLoaderSave StorySave this storyIn the often strange world of AI research, some people are exploring whether the machines should be able to unionize.Im joking, sort of. In Silicon Valley, theres a small but growing field called model welfare, which is working to figure out whether AI models are conscious and deserving of moral considerations, such as legal rights.
Within the past year, two research organizations studying model welfare have popped up: Conscium and Eleos AI Research. Anthropic also hired its first AI welfare researcher last year.Earlier this month, Anthropic said it gave its Claude chatbot the ability to terminate persistently harmful or abusive user interactions that could be potentially distressing.We remain highly uncertain about the potential moral status of Claude and other LLMs, now or in the future, Anthropic said in a blog post.
However, we take the issue seriously, and alongside our research program were working to identify and implement low-cost interventions to mitigate risks to model welfare.While worrying about the well-being of artificial intelligence may seem ridiculous to some people, its not a new idea. More than half a century ago, American mathematician and philosopher Hilary Putnam was posing questions like, Should robots have civil rights?Given the ever-accelerating rate of both technological and social change, it is entirely possible that robots will one day exist, and argue we are alive; we are conscious! Putnam wrote in a 1964 journal article.Now, many decades later, advances in artificial intelligence have led to stranger outcomes than Putnam may have ever anticipated.
People are falling in love with chatbots, speculating about whether they feel pain, and treating AI like a God reaching through the screen. There have been funerals for AI models and parties dedicated to debating what the world might look like after machines inherit the Earth.Perhaps surprisingly, model welfare researchers are among the people pushing back against the idea that AI should be considered conscious, at least right now.
*Reporting by Wired.*
