Anthropic, Google and Meta have over the past year hired computer scientists, neuroscientists and philosophers to study concepts like the welfare of AI models or whether chatbots have forms of emotion. AI companies are collaborating with nonprofits, researchers and academic centers, who warn of an ethical crisis if the digital helpers used by millions of people for homework, coding, office work and therapy one day begin to feel that they hate their job.
Anthropic, maker of the Claude chatbot, has formed an AI psychiatry team to probe the inner states of its AI models and publish assessments of their welfare and preferences. The company introduced the idea that chatbots may have feelings to a new audience in May, when co-founder Chris Olah appeared alongside Pope Leo XIV at the release of the pontiff’s encyclical on artificial intelligence.
“We keep finding things that are mysterious, even unsettling,” Olah said of Anthropic’s AI systems. “We find evidence of introspection [and] states that functionally mirror joy, satisfaction, fear, grief and unease.”
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Although proof of AI consciousness is lacking, many in tech fascinated by the topic are already discussing the moral consequences of finding sentient software.
