If AIs can feel pain, what is our responsibility towards them? | Aeon Essays

is an award-winning journalist who writes on science and its role in society and culture. He has a PhD in Earth science and is a former journalist-in-residence at the Max Planck’s Albert Einstein Institute in Germany. He lives in Dublin, Ireland. Edited byCameron Allan McKean Listen to this essay 25 minute listen ‘Seal Pup on Beach.’ That’s what the makeshift sign read, on a wooden post along Ireland’s eastern coastline. At the water’s edge, I discovered a pair of volunteers watching over a small, sentient being. It lay hairless, blinking slowly as if struggling to see the world around it. Its pale, almost translucent skin blended with the white rocks on the stony beach. The volunteers told me that the pups’ fur is not waterproof in their first few weeks of life, so they cannot enter the sea. This leaves them entirely vulnerable to predation (often from roaming dogs) as they wait for their mothers to return with food. And so, the volunteers were standing guard, protecting a soft, fragi

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