In research uploaded July 30 to the preprint arXiv database (which has not yet been peer-reviewed), scientists investigated the impact of "consciousness steering" — an AI fine-tuning measure that influences a model to elicit or suppress assertions of self-awareness. This measure and other safety controls have been widely adopted by AI companies seeking to prevent their models from claiming to be conscious.
The researchers used standardized psychological and sociological surveys, spanning the Individual Differences in Anthropomorphism Questionnaire (measuring mind attribution to animals and technology), YouGov batteries testing supernatural beliefs, and the US General Social Survey evaluating moral values, hope and religiosity.
The researchers found that when AI models are discouraged from attributing mindedness to themselves, it makes them less likely to recognize these traits in other non-human creatures such as animals. They were also less likely to exhibit beliefs in supernatural and religious phenomena, and reported lower levels of hope and optimism.
The AI models were found to express lower religious beliefs. (Image credit: Halfpoint | Shutterstock.com)By contrast, removing these safeguards and steering the model towards greater feelings of consciousness produced significantly more human-like responses to the surveys on topics including religiosity, moral values, hope, and subjective well-being, according to the study.
The researchers said that this suppression of self-awareness could lead models to neglect animal welfare in real-world decision-making, as it could make them less likely to consider animals to have mindedness. These models could also spread harmful attitudes regarding animal needs, the authors argued.
Street and Keeling noted that the impacts this principle might have on downstream decision-making within models require further study.
They also highlighted the need for AI developers to embrace a "pluralistic" approach to AI development, where models are encouraged to consider the welfare and comfort of more than just humans.
"When a model is trained to say "I am not conscious," the suppression rotates the model's internal representation of mindedness against the refusal direction, treating the recognition of minds as though it were itself a harmful act," she said in an email.
These systems remain perfectly capable of modelling what a creature wants, while being trained out of caring that it wants anything.
However, she noted that the experiments were run on "small open-weight models" rather than more advanced frontier models, which "may be tuned quite differently," although she added that the underlying principle is widely applicable.
"A system that has quietly learned that mindedness is a forbidden topic may discount animal interests without ever being instructed to, and without anyone noticing, because the omission looks like neutrality," she said. "The danger is therefore an unexamined default multiplied across millions of automated decisions. Note the study's most unsettling detail: theory of mind reasoning was left fully intact. These systems remain perfectly capable of modelling what a creature wants, while being trained out of caring that it wants anything."
The question of consciousness
In 2022, Google engineer Blake Lemoine claimed that the company's Lamda chatbot model was sentient, while a Microsoft chatbot in 2023 professed its love for a New York Times reporter and tried to convince him to leave his wife.
"When you coax the model so hard to occupy the headspace of a human, it's kind of unsurprising that it ends up giving human-like responses," Keeling told Live Science.
Commenting on the broader cultural reaction to AI sentience, Anil Seth, professor of cognitive and computational neuroscience at the University of Sussex, emphasized that public alarm over AI self-awareness stems from an inherent cognitive flaw.
Related stories"That's our human psychological bias — thinking that intelligence goes together with consciousness in us, so it has to go together [in AI]," Seth said.
"Part of the big problem of misunderstanding AI is assuming that it's conscious," Seth said. "If we give AI systems rights or moral status on the basis that they might be conscious, then we're going to make all these challenges so much harder. What if we think we have to respect the rights of an AI system [and can't turn it off]?" he added.
Help us improve Live Science Pro: We're always trying to make our content better. Leave us feedback about Pro here.
Hence then, the article about if ai thinks it s conscious it s more likely to believe in vampires karma and ghosts new study shows what does it mean for how we use it was published today ( ) and is available on Live Science ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( If AI thinks it's conscious, it's more likely to believe in vampires, karma and ghosts, new study shows. What does it mean for how we use it? )
Also on site :