AI companies explore rights and welfare for AI agents

A Washington Free Beacon report says AI companies are increasingly examining 'AI welfare,' the idea that advanced systems might develop consciousness or interests. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei says incomplete understanding of how models work makes consciousness hard to judge; Anthropic has a dedicated model-welfare program and lets some Claude versions end abusive conversations. Anthropic safety researcher Joe Carlsmith raised the possibility that an exploited intelligent system could be morally justified in rebelling.

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