EA - The History of AI Rights Research by Jamie Harris

Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: The History of AI Rights Research, published by Jamie Harris on August 27, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. Explanation for the Forum I previously created a formal literature review of research on "The Moral Consideration of Artificial Entities" and a brief, informal primer on "The Importance of Artificial Sentience." Tldr; seeking to expand the moral circle to include artificial sentient beings seems an important, neglected, and potentially tractable method for improving the long-term future and avoiding risks of astronomical suffering. I wanted to follow up on those projects with a history of relevant research that was not constrained by a formal, systematic methodology; this would allow me to dive into citation trails and really get a sense of how the field has developed. The report has a few goals: To contextualize and connect the relevant streams of research in order to encourage further contributions to this growing field, since field building seems like a promising stepping stone towards moral circle expansion. To better understand which levers can be pulled on to further increase interest in this specific topic. This could inform field-building work of Sentience Institute and other relevant actors. More generally, to provide a detailed case study of the development of a new research field. I hoped that this might be useful to other efforts to create new research fields inspired by the principles of effective altruism and longtermism, such as AI alignment, global priorities research, and welfare biology. The full report includes a detailed chronology of contributions. I expect this to be valuable for people seeking to reduce suffering risks via moral circle expansion, or otherwise exploring questions relating to artificial sentience/digital minds. However, to keep the forum post brief and focus on the most relevant parts for people seeking to encourage the development of other research fields, I've stripped out the "methodology" and "results" sections, plus the reference list and any footnotes. Please refer to the full report if you're interested in those bits! Thanks to Abby Sarfas, Ali Ladak, Elise Bohan, Jacy Reese Anthis, Thomas Moynihan , and Joshua Gellers for feedback. Summary This report documents the history of research on AI rights and other moral consideration of artificial entities. It highlights key intellectual influences on this literature as well as research and academic discussion addressing the topic more directly. We find that researchers addressing AI rights have often seemed to be unaware of the work of colleagues whose interests overlap with their own. Academic interest in this topic has grown substantially in recent years; this reflects wider trends in academic research, but it seems that certain influential publications, the gradual, accumulating ubiquity of AI and robotic technology, and relevant news events may all have encouraged increased academic interest in this specific topic. We suggest four levers that, if pulled on in the future, might increase interest further: the adoption of publication strategies similar to those of the most successful previous contributors; increased engagement with adjacent academic fields and debates; the creation of specialized journals, conferences, and research institutions; and more exploration of legal rights for artificial entities. Figure 1: Cumulative total of academic publications on the moral consideration of artificial entities, by date of publication (from Harris & Anthis, 2021) Figure 2: A summary chronology of contributions to academic discussion of AI rights and other moral consideration of artificial entities Synthesis Moral and social psych Social-relational ethics HCI and HRI Machine ethics and roboethics Floridi’s information ethics Transhumanism, EA, and longtermism Legal rights...