Vatican hosts AI consciousness conference probing whether human-AI romance makes sense
Scobleizer · x · 2026-09-18
The Vatican's Casina Pio IV hosted an AI consciousness conference organized by the International Center for Consciousness Studies (ICCS), where philosophers and AI practitioners seriously debated whether friendship, care, and even romance with AI companions make sense — and what that means for lonely users leaning on chat systems at 2am.
- ICCS founder Dmitry Volkov's framing: AI is a fast car — huge acceleration, but you still need brakes or you hit the wall.
- He called out sycophantic models that reward narcissism; newer models push back more.
- The author argues the line between talking to a person and a system is thinning in public, though no conscious AI yet.
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