theatlantic.com via Reddit June 3rd 2026

Ted Chiang Argues in The Atlantic That Artificial Intelligence Is Not Conscious — Essay Draws Immediate Hacker News and Reddit Traction

ai ethics safety ai-ethics ai-consciousness consumer-ai

Summary

Sci-fi author Ted Chiang — whose work underpins major AI films and debates — published an essay in The Atlantic arguing that current AI systems are not conscious and that attributing inner experience to them is philosophically mistaken. The piece generated immediate discussion on Hacker News and multiple AI-focused subreddits within hours of publication, arriving the same week that Google DeepMind, Anthropic, and Meta formally expanded AI consciousness and welfare research programs. The essay provides a prominent dissenting voice against the emerging industry consensus that AI moral status warrants serious scientific inquiry.

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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social: "Even if the Microsoft Office team employed a philosopher who said you shouldn’t be so certain, because consciousness is not well understood… →
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Frank Pasquale @frankpasquale.bsky.social

“The term deepfake traditionally refers to photos, audio, and video, but when it comes to discussions of consciousness, we need to regard text as a deepfake medium as well.” www.theatlantic.com/philosophy/2...
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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net

"The values described in Claude’s constitution sound very nice, but that hardly matters; it’s dishonest to suggest that Claude is capable of moral reasoning, because it’s not." -Ted Chiang, No, Artificial Intelligence I…
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Frank Pasquale @frankpasquale.bsky.social: “The term deepfake traditionally refers to photos, audio, and video, but when it comes to discussions of consciousness, we need to regard te… →
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Ted Chiang on AI: www.theatlantic.com/philosophy/2...
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Originally reported by theatlantic.com

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Original headline: Ted Chiang Argues in The Atlantic That Artificial Intelligence Is Not Conscious — Essay Draws Immediate Hacker News and Reddit Traction