The spiritual and moral questions posed by AI

Last month, Anthropic sought help from a group rarely consulted in tech circles: Christian religious leaders. Some Anthropic staff really don’t want to rule out the possibility that they are creating a creature to whom they owe some kind moral duty. The belief that AI has attained some level of sentience or self-awareness is still a minority view inside Silicon Valley. But many who work on the technology think it will eventually attain capacities currently seen as unique to humans. Some of Anthropic’s top leaders have a background in effective altruism, a largely secular movement that emphasizes using evidence and rational thinking to work out how to do the most good in the world. The meetings appeared to have been spurred by a feeling by some at Anthropic that secular approaches might be insufficient for tackling the spiritual and moral questions posed by AI. -Washington Post