AI Sentience and the Moral Imperative: Charting a Path for AI Rights

In late 2017, Jacy Reese Anthis' book "The End of Animal Farming" and the groundbreaking Transformer paper were published, coinciding with significant advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) since the introduction of AlexNet, ImageNet, and deep learning around five years earlier. With sufficient funding, Anthis shifted his focus to AI research and co-founded the Sentience Institute.

An exclusive interview with AIM saw Anthis discuss the importance of AI rights. He explained that their focus has always been on the expansion of humanity's moral circle and a broad mandate to address non-human intelligence.

Defining AI Rights

Anthis published a comprehensive article advocating for an AI rights movement, despite AI currently lacking the ability to experience emotions, suffering, or happiness like humans or animals. However, Anthis, a PhD fellow at the University of Chicago, believes this could change soon.

Anthis discussed various conceptions of rights in philosophy, explaining that rights should be tailored to the interests of the sentient beings involved. He pointed out that AI possesses unique capabilities, responsibilities, and societal roles that should shape their rights, emphasizing the importance of their sentience and the need to protect their interests.