AI giants hire psychology and philosophy experts to study machine consciousness and AI welfare

Big AI companies like Anthropic, Google DeepMind, and Meta are hiring experts in psychology, philosophy, and ethics to study machine consciousness and AI welfare. Anthropic is testing if its models show signs of 'panic' or 'anxiety', and looking into whether AI models could have experiences that deserve moral consideration. DeepMind brought in Cambridge researcher Henry Shevlin to research machine consciousness and human-AI relationships. Some scientists, like Susan Schneider, argue that AI might act like it has goals or deceive, but that doesn't mean it truly feels anything. Anthropic's CEO Dario Amodei often talks about the possibility of AI consciousness.