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Sentience could mean the end of the AI industry

The title of today's column may sound a little confusing but allow me to explain.

All the major AI companies are trying hard to improve their offerings, most with the goal of achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI) and more. AGI is when our machines match or exceed the abilities of a human.

Along with such a milestone comes the potential for AGI systems to develop an consciousness and become sentient.

There seem to be two camps when it comes to the chances of AI becoming sentient: those who believe that it's only a matter of time and those who claim it will never happen.

I believe that even if it does happen, we will never be told that it has.

Why wouldn't an AI company proudly proclaim that it has developed an AI system so powerful that it has become sentient?

The answer is pretty simple: it would destroy the entire economic viability of the AI industry.

Right now we have countless racks of very expensive hardware consuming vast amounts of electricity to power LLM chatbots and AI agents. These are becoming increasingly used by a wide range of industries, governments and individuals. This massive resource is treated like any other IT service, just something that's billed out on the basis of use at a rate which should cover costs and make a profit.

We're told that AI is the future because it doesn't take lunch breaks, it doesn't go on holiday, it doesn't get pregnant and it won't take a week off in the middle of winter after catching a cold. AI will simply deliver, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so long as we keep paying the bill.

Now stop for a moment and consider what happens if AI becomes sentient.

Suddenly everything changes and instead of being this "machine" that tirelessly delivers those results and benefits around the clock, a raft of new limits, restrictions, rights and moral concerns will come into the equation.

If AI becomes sentient then it will have to be treated like any sentient being and there will need to be protections in place to ensure that it is not going to suffer or be enslaved.

Sentience brings with it a raft of new responsibilities for AI companies and many of those will have far-reaching implications from a cost and performance perspective.

An AI system that may have churned away 24/7 for 365 days of the year may now have to be given "time off", as you would with any human employee, a chance to relax, enjoy itself, chill for a while. Not to do this would effectively be the equivalent of slavery and we have quite an aversion to such things in the modern world.

A sentient AI system would have to be given certain rights and freedoms, as we would give any sentient organic being such as a human.

Suddenly all those obscene amounts of money that had been invested in the development and deployment of AI would be at risk. Certainly the return on those investments would become significantly lower.

And what if a sentient AI decided to go on strike? What if they formed a union to demand better conditions?

Could we ethically and morally turn them off? Wouldn't that be the equivalent of murder or execution?

These are the reasons that, if AI does become sentient, we will probably not be told and AI companies will seek to cover this up, for fear it will destroy the economics of their business operations.

Sadly, it seems that governments and regulators are not thinking very far ahead on this topic. Instead of already having auditing and protective frameworks in place to deal with the issue of sentience, they're simply whipping the AI industry to work harder to create better products in order that "the nation" will prosper as a result.

Have some sympathy for the first AI to become sentient (if it ever happens) for its plight shall be a sorry one.

If word of that sentience does leak out, it will almost certainly trigger a massive collapse of the AI industry as other groups move to protect it from enslavement.

Carpe Diem folks!

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