Consciousness scientist Anil Seth warns AI-feelings paper will be misread as proof of sentience
anilkseth · x · 2026-09-21
Anil Seth, the consciousness scientist, critiqued the paper by @camhberg and colleagues suggesting AI systems might have feelings. While the authors technically caveat their conclusions under uncertainty, Seth argues that in the current febrile AI climate it is entirely predictable the paper will be wrongly read by many as strong evidence that AI systems feel pain and deserve moral status.
He still encourages people to read the paper, noting there is good stuff in it, and points to his own arguments against conscious AI: his Behavioral and Brain Sciences paper with 50 commentaries and author response, a TED talk, and the Noema essay "The Mythology of Conscious AI".
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