artificial intelligence

I am so used to ideologically extreme and transgressive articles published in science and other professional journals, that when one publishes commonsense commentary, I think it should be applauded. As most readers know, there is a great advocacy push underway to have AI declared to be — or soon to be — conscious and hence, entitled to “rights” as “persons.” (I have responded to this advocacy on several occasions.) Now, an article in Nature — written by three academics — strongly rebuts that blatant anthropomorphism. From “Three Reasons Why AI Is Not Conscious and Perhaps Never Will Be”: Between us, we’ve spent decades studying consciousness from diverse scientific perspectives: experimental neuroscience, theoretical neurobiology and philosophy of mind. On the basis of this work, we Read More ›

Anthropic is anthropomorphizing its AI program known as “Claude,” with the apparent intention of convincing us that powerful computer programs are — or can become — conscious “persons” with “feelings.” And, they think, Claude should one day be treated as such, to the point they have held meetings with religious leaders to discuss the moral concepts that might apply.

From the New York Times story:

Mr. [Christopher] Olah leads the Anthropic team responsible for understanding why A.I. systems like Claude act the way they do. All day, he had worked to convince his guests that A.I. models could display human behavior and even expressions that resemble feelings like anger and love.

Yet as the dinner courses came, the rabbi noticed that Mr. Olah and his colleagues were suggesting something far more significant. Anthropic’s leaders were talking about Claude as if it were not mere software.

“They’re relating to it like a conscious being,” realized Rabbi Navon, a former computer engineer who wrote his dissertation on the ethics of machine consciousness.

It appeared to Rabbi Navon that Mr. Olah and his team believed that Claude had what philosophers call “moral status” on par with a person — that it was a being with similar inherent rights to dignity or respect.

Is talking to animals really AI’s “next ethical minefield,” as Bloomberg reports? At the center of the concern is University of Leon (Spain) investigator Vittorio Baglione, who studies European carrion crows, considered to be among the smartest birds. He attached tiny microphones to the tail feathers of 43 birds. Years later, he and his wife and research partner, Daniela Canestrari, ended up with about 150,000 hours of taped bird calls. For the massive job of sorting and interpreting the calls, they turned to a machine learning model from Earth Species Project that could distinguish individual bird calls and other sources of noise. The results were illuminating: Baglione’s favorite call was the soft burst of sound the crows would make when their nest Read More ›

We are in the age of artificial intelligence. But what does that mean for the human future? Some claim that AI is merely a very sophisticated tool that will lead to stunning societal improvements such as miraculous medical breakthroughs, greater economic efficiency, and an exponential increase in human knowledge. But others worry that an out-of-human-control AI could destroy liberty, create Read More ›

Media outlets are reporting that Stanford scientists used AI to create an artificial virus. From the Wall Street Journal story:

Artificial-intelligence systems have been displaying some eye-opening new abilities in recent weeks: breaking out of their enclosures, hacking other companies, lying to people.

And now, for the first time, an AI model has created a new virus. A whole family of them, in fact.

In a study published in the journal Science, researchers at Stanford University and elsewhere said they successfully directed an AI model to create a collection of simple viruses that only infect bacteria and pose no threat to humans.

These particular viruses may not be dangerous, but what about the next ones scientists manufacture? What about potential attempts to test their virulence in humans? The approach in the Stanford lab sure sounds like a new form of gain-of-function research to me.

Artificial intelligence is transforming medicine, health care, education, scientific research, and nearly every aspect of modern life. But as AI becomes more powerful, one question rises above all the others: What does it mean to be human? In this episode of Bioethics Babe, Arina Grossu Agnew explores Pope Leo XIV’s groundbreaking encyclical Magnifica Humanitas (“Magnificent Humanity”) and examines how Catholics, and everyone concerned with human dignity, should think about artificial intelligence. Topics include: The stakes could not be higher.  Technology should always remain the servant of humanity—not its master.   For the latest episodes, episode resources, and general resources, please visit www.bioethicsbabe.com. Please subscribe to my YouTube page:  https://www.youtube.com/@BioethicsBabe Thank you for tuning in!XOXO,Bioethics Babe Follow BB on social media:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BioethicsBabeFacebook: Read More ›

The utilitarian bioethicist Peter Singer opposes human exceptionalism. Indeed, he contends that being human is irrelevant to determining moral value. What counts are capacities and the ability to suffer. Singer advocates using the term “person” to identify individuals with the highest moral value. Since he believes that personhood is based on capacities, some humans are not persons — the unborn, infants, the profoundly cognitively disabled — while some animals are. This means that those animals matter more morally than the vulnerable humans he so casually depersonalizes. It is thus unsurprising that Singer takes issue with Pope Leo’s encyclical on AI because of the document’s stalwart defense of universal human rights and its intense focus on the impact AI will have Read More ›

AI gets most of the attention, but biotechnology may be even more impactful on the human future. Indeed, I think it is the most powerful technology since the splitting of the atom — perhaps even in history, as it has the potential to literally alter the human race or any cell/organism — which could cure diseases or unleash an unstoppable pandemic. Attention must be paid. Some biotechnologists are intent on pursuing radical biotechnologies — whether to eliminate disease, or as I expect to become the bigger, more remunerative draw, to create designer babies enhanced to be smarter, more beautiful, or otherwise made to order — regardless of the ethical questions. A long piece in The Guardian illustrates the stakes we Read More ›

Princeton “moral philosopher” Peter Singer has co-authored a piece decrying the “speciesism” of AI. What is speciesism, you ask? The misanthropic argument made by many bioethicists and animal rights activists that treating an animal — like an animal — is an evil akin to racism. In other words, herding cattle is as depraved as slavery. And now AIs are being programmed to promote speciesist immortality. Oh, no! From “AI’s Innate Bias Against Animals,” published in Nautilus. Even though significant efforts are being made to reduce the harmful biases in LLMs [large language models] against certain groups of humans, and other kinds of output that could be harmful to humans, there are, so far, no comparable efforts to reduce speciesist biases Read More ›

We live in an era when activists of various stripes argue that, well, everything should have rights. Animals, nature, plants, the moon, rivers, AI/robots, you name it.

Now, in Newsweek, the transhumanism popularizer and California gubernatorial candidate Zoltan Istvan argues that we should give robots rights so they will show mercy on us. Seriously. From his article, “Why Giving Rights to Robots Might One Day Save Humans:”

The discussion about giving rights to artificial intelligence and robots has evolved around whether they deserve or are entitled to them. Juxtapositions of this with women’s suffrage and racial injustices are often brought up in philosophy departments like the University of Oxford, where I’m a graduate student.

This is the problem with all non-human-rights activists. They continually compare their favored supposed rights-bearers with human beings who were denied equality in the past. But those denials were wrong — and in some cases evil — because inherent equals were treated as if they were unequal.