This Element investigates whether artificial intelligence (AI) systems could ever be welfare subjects. Some people argue that AIs could plausibly have or soon have features such as consciousness, agency and the capacity for social relationships, which could provide a basis for AI welfare. These arguments have massive significance for the societal conversation on AI, raising profound ethical and political questions about what if anything we owe to these new technologies. The authors here provide the philosophical groundwork for a scientific, philosophical and ultimately democratic inquiry into the potential for AI welfare, addressing key questions that cut across different arguments: what welfare is, how to interpret behavioural evidence of AI welfare, what kinds of entities might qualify as candidate AI welfare subjects, the potential grounds for welfare in AI and the practical ethical challenges that arise from our uncertainty. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.
