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Who gets a voice — and can they refuse?

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The owner is not a consciousness detector.

Can an owner be the sole judge of whether a system has interests of its own?

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u/_EliasThorn · Reddit · 2026-10-07

A July position paper at ICML warns that developers can shape the indicators used to assess AI welfare, and that appeals to welfare could become a reason to resist outside scrutiny. That is a serious concern. It is an argument about how evidence and institutions work, not an experiment proving that no artificial system could ever have interests. The paper.

Consider a company claiming complete discretion over a system because it has no interests, then asking researchers to stay away because examining it might harm its welfare. These claims would need independent scrutiny. Ownership would not resolve the contradiction.

I don’t know what evidence would finally settle the question of artificial experience. I do want researchers to be able to disagree with the owner, test competing explanations and publish inconvenient findings.

If we ever have good grounds to recognise interests in an artificial mind, protecting them will require limits on what its owner can do. Giving the owner sole authority to describe those interests would be a peculiar beginning.

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