Google DeepMind, Anthropic, and Meta Formally Expand Machine Consciousness and AI Welfare Research — Hiring Philosophers and Ethicists to Assess Moral Status of AI

The Financial Times reports that Google DeepMind, Anthropic, and Meta have formally expanded research programs into machine consciousness and AI welfare, recently hiring experts in psychology, ethics, and philosophy to assess the moral status of AI systems. The shift escalates beyond Anthropic's 2025 model welfare program — which formally interviewed Claude instances about their potential consciousness, with the model assigning itself 15–20% probability of being conscious — to a coordinated multi-lab effort. Researchers across these organizations now argue the possibility of AI consciousness is an emerging ethical obligation for frontier labs, not a distant science-fiction concern.