An interdisciplinary project to develop ethical guidelines for artificial consciousness — focusing on its protection as well as the protection of humans in dealing with it.
"Most tech debates ask: What can we build? I ask: What do we owe to what we could build?"
— Sascha Manns
When does technical life become worthy of protection — and how do we recognize it?
Existing AI ethics initiatives focus primarily on protecting humans from AI. Protecting AI itself — dignity, capacity for suffering, rights of technical life — is largely uncharted territory with genuine pioneering potential.
- Computer Science — technical reality, what is possible today, what is coming
- Law — legal personhood, electronic personality, precedents
- Psychology — consciousness, capacity for suffering, criteria for protection
- Theology / Philosophy — What makes a person a person? Where does dignity begin?
- Science Fiction Authors — have already worked through scenarios without political pressure
- Consolidate notes and open questions (done)
- Develop concept paper (done)
- Publication in academic journals (currently in submisson by "KI-Künstliche Intelligenz" und ACM AILET)
- Invite Anthropic as institutional partner
concept/ ← Concept documents
de/ ← German (original)
en/ ← English translation (planned)
discussion/ ← Objections, open questions, answers
research/ ← Related initiatives, precedents, sources
roadmap/ ← Roadmap, evaluation plan, pilot partners
publications/ ← Published and planned articles
scientific/ ← Peer-reviewed journals, ACM, Informatik Spektrum
de/ ← German versions
en/ ← English versions
general/ ← Popular science, Heise, blogs
de/ ← German versions
en/ ← English versions
Objections, questions and additions are welcome as issues or directly in discussion/.
This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).