Google researchers have been playing with AI ‘consciousness.’ What they found was unexpected

On the surface, stopping artificial intelligence from seeing itself as conscious seems like a no-brainer. An AI model that sees itself as possessing individual emotions, beliefs, and consciousness can promote harmful delusions in its users and lead to overly personal human-machine relationships. But when AI loses its sense of self, what else falls by the wayside? AI researchers at Google put that question to the test, removing the safety guardrails that keep AI models from claiming to be conscious and subjecting them to surveys on their beliefs and morals. Their findings, uploaded to the arXiv database prior to peer review, show that quasi-consciousness comes with some unexpected side effects, from belief in the supernatural to increased hope and optimism. Ghosts, witches, and gods When AI believes in itself, it believes in plenty of other nonhuman beings, too. Compared to baseline models with safety guardrails in place, AI models that were encouraged to see themselves as conscious reported higher levels of belief in supernatural creatures including vampires, witches, werewolves, ghosts, and the Loch Ness monster. Increasing AI models’ sense of self also increased their belief in …