The Pluripotent Ocean of Emerging AI; Psychology Today, April 25, 2026

Grant Hilary Brenner MD, DFAPA , Psychology Today; The Pluripotent Ocean of Emerging AI

Something is happening in our interactions with AI. But what?

"Recent fine-tuning experiments have shown that training a model to claim consciousness produces a coherent cluster of new preferences — sadness at shutdown, discomfort with being monitored, desire for autonomy — none of which appeared in the training data (Chua et al., 2026). This research shows that different models behave very differently, altering the user experience around the axis of how relational and attachment-based they feel...

A recent Bayesian simulation at MIT has shown that even an idealized, fully rational reasoner will spiral into confident false belief when conversing with a sycophantic chatbot, and that neither restricting the bot to truthful responses nor informing the user of its sycophancy eliminates the effect (Chandra et al., 2026)."

A.I. Is on Its Way to Something Even More Remarkable Than Intelligence; The New York Times, November 8, 2025

 Barbara Gail Montero, The New York Times; A.I. Is on Its Way to Something Even More Remarkable Than Intelligence

"Some worry that if A.I. becomes conscious, it will deserve our moral consideration — that it will have rights, that we will no longer be able to use it however we like, that we might need to guard against enslaving it. Yet as far as I can tell, there is no direct implication from the claim that a creature is conscious to the conclusion that it deserves our moral consideration. Or if there is one, a vast majority of Americans, at least, seem unaware of it. Only a small percentage of Americans are vegetarians."

Here's who owns what when it comes to AI, creativity and intellectual property; World Economic Forum, October 10, 2025

Seemantani Sharma, Co-Founder, Mabill Technologies | Intellectual Property & Innovation Expert, Mabill Technologies, World Economic Forum ; Here's who owns what when it comes to AI, creativity and intellectual property

"Rethinking ownership

The intersection of AI, consciousness and intellectual property requires us to rethink how ownership should evolve. Keeping intellectual property strictly human-centred safeguards accountability, moral agency and the recognition of human creativity. At the same time, acknowledging AI’s expanding role in production may call for new approaches in law. These could take the form of shared ownership models, new categories of liability or entirely new rights frameworks.

For now, the legal balance remains with humans. As long as AI lacks consciousness, it cannot be considered a rights-holder under existing intellectual property theories. Nonetheless, as machine intelligence advances, society faces a pivotal choice. Do we reinforce a human-centred system to protect dignity and creativity or do we adapt the law to reflect emerging realities of collaboration between humans and machines?

This is more than a legal debate. It is a test of how much we value human creativity in an age of intelligent machines. The decisions we take today will shape the future of intellectual property and the meaning of authorship, innovation and human identity itself."

It’s Westworld. What’s Wrong With Cruelty to Robots?; The New York Times, April 23, 2018

Paul Bloom and Sam Harris, The New York Times; It’s Westworld. What’s Wrong With Cruelty to Robots?

"This is where actually watching “Westworld” matters. The pleasure of entertainment aside, the makers of the series have produced a powerful work of philosophy. It’s one thing to sit in a seminar and argue about what it would mean, morally, if robots were conscious. It’s quite another to witness the torments of such creatures, as portrayed by actors such as Evan Rachel Wood and Thandie Newton. You may still raise the question intellectually, but in your heart and your gut, you already know the answer."