Machine Consciousness, Social AI, and the Ethics of Human–AI Relationships with Dr. Henry Shevlin

Andrew interviews Dr. Henry Shevlin, Associate Director at Cambridge’s Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence and an in-house philosopher at Google DeepMind, about machine consciousness and the ethics of social AI.

Shevlin explains consciousness as an inner world of experience, why its origins remain scientifically mysterious, and why it matters ethically for suffering and moral status. As AI becomes more general, he argues it’s increasingly reasonable to worry about future conscious AI and to manage public disagreement, while focusing now on human–AI interaction and why users mentalize systems (e.g., the 2022 Blake Lemoine/LaMDA incident).

They discuss indirect reasons to treat AI respectfully, parallels ...