Research and advocacy to protect novel forms of consciousness (“novel minds”) from exploitation, spanning the spectrum from biological to digital systems. Open to collaboration on policy work, research, or related advocacy.
Writing publicly under a pseudonym for professional reasons but happy to connect privately.
One other point that I’d add, is that these concerns can be complementary. I mention this in a previous post, but building the institutional capacity and legal frameworks to protect potentially novel forms of consciousness from commercial exploitation (even if in this case partly biological) could set important precedents for other forms later. Digital minds should also not be used as mere computational resources, and if framed correctly regulation here could lay groundwork that assists in that effort as well.
I agree that a moratorium alone may not be sufficient long term, but the broader issue is that there’s no regulatory infrastructure at all to enforce other alternatives. In the near term the goal would be to halt widespread commercialization so that such policies can be thoroughly discussed and implemented. Agreed that the public awareness piece seems broadly useful regardless of outcome.
Do you know if the Centre for Biomedical Ethics was consulted? It would also be very interesting to know how the university and IRB approval worked here. Not just the initial validation, but whether these approvals were granted with the knowledge that this would transition from a research prototype to commercial deployment at scale. Any of these answers would be very good to know (feel free to DM me if you want). In general you seemed uniquely positioned here, really glad you read the post!
Thank you for engaging! I think it is worth sending inquiries to relevant regulators, particularly the NHMRC, who is currently reviewing its regulatory framework (with its 2016 regulations sunsetting in October 2026). It feels very important for them to understand that widespread commercialization should not proceed, and for this to be written into actual policy. Also, contacting your federal MP and other politicians to get this on their radar seems very important, since to my knowledge no Australian citizens are working on this. You definitely have an edge there. Also, any local Australian journalists or science communicators would be worth reaching out to.
I’d argue that the overwhelming majority of the voting populace would find it easier to visualize future, more advanced biological wetware as potentially sentient. And regulations for one domain, if framed correctly, will influence the other. It seems to me that political willpower will be much easier to build if we start where public intuition is strongest and expand from there.
Glad you think so! I find this issue fairly tractable given how visceral it is, and definitely neglected (single digit people in the world). Let me know if you have any ideas on sharpening the message.