AI Sentience Debate

This cluster centers on debates about whether AI systems like LLMs are sentient, conscious, or possess feelings and rights, including ethical concerns over controlling, shutting down, or anthropomorphizing them.

📉 Falling 0.4x AI & Machine Learning
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Comments
20
Years Active
5
Top Authors
#5625
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Keywords

e.g AI CPU LLM EMH youtube.com PC KNOW PRNG GT sentient ai human humans consciousness intelligence aware animals rights self

Sample Comments

snickerbockers Mar 22, 2023 View on HN

Is this the same AI that is supposedly a sentient being with rights we must respect?

MarinReiter Nov 10, 2017 View on HN

Why would an AI have survival instincts? You are projecting your humanity onto them.

dclowd9901 Mar 27, 2016 View on HN

Totalitarian authority over an AI's mind seems just as egregious as over a human's...

touristtam May 16, 2023 View on HN

You seems to imply sentience from this "ai".

plufz Nov 3, 2025 View on HN

Have needs and feelings? (I mean we can’t KNOW that they don’t and we know of this case of an LLM in experiment that try to avoid being shutdown, but I think the evidence of feeling seems weak so far)

dedward Feb 25, 2012 View on HN

if that mimicry is indistinguishable from a human, then by definition it is as sentient as a human.... thatsthepoint.

thriftwy Oct 17, 2023 View on HN

Sentience are two things: willpower and intelligence.LLMs are highly intelligent and are capable of feats that were thought impossible not just for animals and machines but for most of humanity.At the same time, LLMs lack willpower and non-deterministic free will (which even non-sentient animals have) so protecting them as a living creature is moot.They do deserve some kind of preservation as cultural artifacts, though.

ekianjo Nov 28, 2016 View on HN

Not sure what you mean. If we create sentient AI, why dont you consider them to be as human as their creators? It's a matter of philosophy in the end.

jokermatt999 Oct 19, 2010 View on HN

That's a tad like asking if an artificial intelligence is sentient, no? :P

mooktakim Aug 19, 2022 View on HN

Artificial General Intelligence != sentient being