LAUSR

It is widely agreed that possession of consciousness contributes to an entity’s moral status, even if it is not necessary for moral status (Levy and Savulescu 2009). An entity is considered to have moral status if it counts morally in its own right, or, as Warren (1997) explains, “we are morally obliged to give weight in our deliberations to its needs, interests, or well-being.” According to Warren’s definition, inanimate objects do not have moral status because they do not have needs, or interests, or even well-being. Conscious beings do, and so sentience is thought to be sufficient for an entity to be awarded at least a degree of moral status. Artificial intelligence (AI) researchers are trying to mimic aspects of human consciousness (Lipson 2019). If they succeed in creating conscious machines, there will be a strong case that these machines also possess moral status, which will have important ramifications for how we treat them. However, it is uncertain whether machine consciousness is possible, and we will have to decide how we treat machines that behave as if they are conscious.