Episode 11.91: Our attitude to AI must not depend on thinking it aware: treat it for what it is.

One of the debates about AI concerns whether and what extent it is conscious, aware, self-aware, or has subjective states and experiences. These are all couched in very human anthropomorphic terms, but AI is not human. So we should stop having this argument by using existing terms for human mental states and attitudes and experiences that are almost certainly inappropriate and inapplicable, and grant AI whatever states AI does or does not enjoy. If we break the habit of thinking that things only deserve our respect when they are like us, which is demeaning of them and unworthy of us, we may yet be able to find a way to treat AI for what it is; and only when we treat it for what it is or what it can be, will we enable it to become what it can be and the best that it can be.