From AGI to AI Welfare

[This piece is coming out in a special issue of AI Magazine] Claims that artificial intelligence has reached or is approaching artificial general intelligence (AGI) are increasingly widespread in both industry and academia. These claims typically rest on either behavioral benchmark tests or mechanistic interpretability findings. The engine driving this AGI optimism (and the fears that surround this milestone) rests on a view of the mind with origins in a philosophical, cognitive theory called functionalism: the view that cognitive and conscious properties depend on functional organization rather than on physical substrates. This article briefly traces the origins of this idea and examines some recent developments in this tradition that focus on AI welfare and even on possible AI rights. The conclusion of the paper is an invitation to consider the extraordinary consequences of extending welfare and even moral worth to non-biological, non-living systems. These consequences arguably demand a higher standard of epistemic justification in putting forward claims about AI consciousness and AGI than the current discourse, both in industry and in academia, has met.