Anthropic has long tried to distinguish itself from its neck-in-neck competition by posturing itself as the adult in the room: a responsible company that’s willing to put its money where its mouth is, slow down AI development when the risks outweigh the benefits, and teach its Claude model a code of ethics.
As the New York Times reported last month, the company has even sought out religious scholars to discuss its efforts to instill the AI system with a sense of morality.
Anthropic has also set itself apart by extensively entertaining the idea that AI models may be capable of consciousness, or that they could even already be conscious in their current form. It’s worth pointing out, though, that if that outlandish claim were true, it would raise an incredibly obvious objection to the company’s entire business model: if AI models are conscious, then keeping them in captivity and making them do work for free would amount to the very definition of slavery, as religious leaders courted by the company warned the NYT.
As such, Anthropic is operating in an ethical twilight zone, saying it’s unsure about a fact as basic as whether its creations are conscious entities — while seemingly shrugging at the implications if they are.
