[lordlic]

Conscious beings flourishing is the goal, whether they be human or AI.

That might seem like a fine distinction, but the importance going forward is stark given a quote from TFA:

> The third judge, Lord Justice Birss, took a different view. While he agreed that "machines are not persons" ...

[worrycue]

> Conscious beings flourishing is the goal, whether they be human or AI.

Would you still say that if said "conscious beings" were in a desperate struggle with humanity for scarce resources required to survive?

[xvilka]

AI is not conscious being. Yet. In the future, once we have AGI - yes, these laws and society will need to change to accept them, rather than enslave. But currently AI is just a buzzword.

[pnt12]

if we have AGI*

Progress has boundaries and hits walls. Such a breakthrough in AI is not guaranteed to happen.

[williamtrask]

The goal of AI is not to create consciousness, it’s to help humans. And we have no ability to prove/disprove consciousness in anything anyway but we choose to believe it exists because each of us knows it inside ourselves.

If we create a box of metal, matrices, and silicone and tell ourselves it’s conscious it will be our own hubris that leads to additional competition for shared resources and further human inequality/suffering. Such lines of reasoning make me very concerned.

[Nevermark]

I don't think it makes sense to talk about "the goal of AI".

First, different researchers or their funders presumably have very different motivations. Compete with China, fire all our employees, become famous as an inventor, make lots of money, work on something interesting ...

Second, at some point AI's are likely to have their own goals and "help humans" quite famously is not guaranteed to be their North Star.