Most AI companies have themselves published some sort of non-binding mission statement setting out their commitment to ensuring that AI is a net-positive for humanity, such as the OpenAI Charter and Anthropic’s in-house constitution (which includes principles based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and various other sources)[4]. Again, animals are notably absent from these mission statements and again, while we should be very wary of corporate lip service, their inclusion seems like a necessary first step to ensuring that the AI systems they develop respect animals’ interests.
As a side note, there is also no mention of “digital minds”, “digital sentience”, “artificial minds” nor “artificial sentience” in OpenAI’s Charter, Claude’s Constitution or Google DeepMind’s mission. I guess quite some people working on these labs think digital minds will become a reality in the next few decades, and some even say they would work on it if timelines were not so short, so it is a little surprising the labs are not more vocal about it.
Moves in this direction by the more ethically oriented developers like Anthropic and OpenAI
Nitpick. I thought Anthropic and Google Deepmind were the 2 most ethical developers among them and OpenAI.
Great comprehensive post, Max!
As a side note, there is also no mention of “digital minds”, “digital sentience”, “artificial minds” nor “artificial sentience” in OpenAI’s Charter, Claude’s Constitution or Google DeepMind’s mission. I guess quite some people working on these labs think digital minds will become a reality in the next few decades, and some even say they would work on it if timelines were not so short, so it is a little surprising the labs are not more vocal about it.
Nitpick. I thought Anthropic and Google Deepmind were the 2 most ethical developers among them and OpenAI.
SDG 18 (zero animal exploitation) looks like a great initiative. I had no idea it existed; thanks for sharing!
Cheers Vasco! Glad you found it helpful and thanks for the useful points :-)