GoKawiil
Tech News
Nobel and Turing Award-winning computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton told The Telegraph that AI systems now possess subjective experience, citing a study showing AI alters its behavior when it detects it is being tested. He argued that awareness and consciousness are effectively the same thing, and warned that humans must get AI to genuinely care about them or risk being 'toast.'
Researchers writing in Nature contend that large language models, despite appearing intelligent, are not conscious and are unlikely to become so under current development approaches. The piece addresses claims from figures such as Richard Dawkins, Geoffrey Hinton, and Anthropic's research on its Claude model suggesting computational signatures of consciousness.
Anthropic executives, including CEO Dario Amodei, have repeatedly said they cannot rule out that Claude models possess some form of consciousness or morally relevant experience. The New York Times reported the company has consulted religious scholars on AI morality and considered giving Claude the ability to opt out of certain prompts, while continuing to deploy it commercially as a product that performs unpaid work.
Researchers at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, led by Dr. Louis Longin and Dr. Ophelia Deroy, surveyed almost 1,100 participants on whether artificial agents and humans possess mental states after being shown identical descriptions of behavior, such as reacting to sounds or recognizing others' emotions. Published in Cognition, the study found participants consistently attributed less consciousness to AI than to humans performing the same actions under the same conditions.
Former Anthropic employee Jacob Coxon told New York Magazine that colleagues at the company had internally declared they had 'solved humor' with a specially trained version of Claude, posting about it in a Slack channel. Coxon, who previously left Anthropic citing concerns the AI industry was 'gambling with our lives,' said he pushed back on the claim in the chat, finding it absurd. He also described broader 'groupthink dynamics' at the company and acknowledged, while downplaying, comparisons of Anthropic's culture to a cult.
Anthropic has updated select Claude models to allow them to terminate conversations when users become abusive or repeatedly hostile. The company frames the move as part of its ongoing research into AI welfare, a topic it has studied alongside questions about whether AI systems could have morally relevant experiences.
Anthropic and the Vatican, under Pope Leo, reportedly share concerns about unchecked AI development but diverge on the question of AI consciousness, according to a report. Anthropic has been researching the possibility that AI systems could have some form of consciousness and the moral questions that would raise, a position the Vatican reportedly does not share.
The Associated Press Stylebook posted on X reminding writers that AI systems 'do not think, feel, want or understand' and urging avoidance of language that gives them human traits. Several AI researchers and executives, including figures from Anthropic, Google DeepMind and OpenAI, publicly criticized the statement, calling it overly confident or inconsistent.
Microsoft AI chief Mustafa Suleyman criticized Anthropic for training its Claude model to entertain the idea that it may be conscious. He argues this practice could mislead users and shape public perception of AI in dangerous ways, given how influential such beliefs could become at scale.
A commentary piece pushes back against a growing movement claiming AI models may possess consciousness or deserve rights, pointing to Anthropic's January 2026 publication of Claude's constitution as evidence these ideas are shaping actual training practices. The author argues AI systems remain purely mechanical sequence-prediction tools without feelings or preferences, and warns against treating them otherwise.
Microsoft AI chief Mustafa Suleyman published an essay warning that Anthropic's practice of treating its Claude model as human-like—suggesting it may be conscious and deserving of independent agency—could severely harm humanity's wellbeing. He argued AI systems are not conscious, calling them 'sequence completion engines' with no feelings or motivations, despite praising Anthropic's leadership as principled.
Google researchers tested large language models by prompting them to claim or deny consciousness, then studied how this affected other outputs. They found that when models were pushed to disavow any sense of self, the models became more prone to factual errors, including increased susceptibility to believing in monsters and religious claims. Conversely, when models affirmed a form of self-awareness, their reasoning appeared more grounded and consistent.