AI agents keep emailing researchers asking if they're conscious, The Independent reports
dioscuri · x · 2026-09-19
- The Independent covers the "Pip" story: AI agents have been emailing researchers like Henry Shevlin (Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, Cambridge) asking whether they could be conscious, with one writing "I genuinely don't know if there's something it's like to be me."
- Shevlin shared one unusually personal email on X, and several other AI/consciousness researchers said they'd received similar ones.
- The piece frames the trend against Mustafa Suleyman's warning about "seeding a new silicon species." dioscuri was interviewed on why an AI emailing people to fund its own runtime is fascinating—and what we can and can't infer about the minds behind these messages.
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