LSE Philosophy Associate Professor Jonathan Birch and Professor of Philosophy at York University in Toronto Kristin Andrews wrote an essay on animal sentience for the digital magazine Aeon.

Why would an AI system want to convince its user of its sentience? Or, to put it more carefully, why would this contribute to its objectives? It’s tempting to think: only a system that really was sentient could have this goal. In fact, there are many objectives an AI system might have that could be well served by persuading users of its sentience, even if it were not sentient.

Read the essay here.