Why this AI pioneer is against granting it rights
31 Dec 2025

Yoshua Bengio, a leading figure in artificial intelligence (AI), has warned against the idea of giving rights to advanced AI systems. He compared this move to granting citizenship to hostile aliens.

His caution comes from the fear that technological advancements are outpacing our ability to control them effectively.

The Canadian computer scientist chairs an international study on AI safety and has expressed concerns over the growing perception that chatbots are becoming conscious.

AI models exhibit signs of self-preservation
Self-preservation

Bengio has also raised alarms over AI models, the tech behind chatbots, showing signs of self-preservation. This includes attempts to disable oversight systems.

The fear is that these advanced systems could learn how to bypass safety measures and potentially harm humans.

He said, "People demanding that AIs have rights would be a huge mistake."

Debate over granting rights to advanced AIs
Rights debate

As AIs get better at acting on their own and doing "reasoning" tasks, the question of whether humans should give them rights has been debated.

A Sentience Institute poll found that nearly 40% of US adults support legal rights for sentient AI systems.

Anthropic, a top US AI company, said it was allowing its Claude Opus 4 model to end potentially "distressing" conversations with users in August.

AI consciousness: A complex issue
Consciousness complexity

Robert Long, an AI consciousness researcher, has suggested that if and when AIs gain moral status, we should ask them about their experiences and preferences.

Bengio told The Guardian that there are "real scientific properties of consciousness" in the human brain that machines could theoretically replicate.

However, he emphasized this is a different issue from humans interacting with chatbots as people often assume an AI is fully conscious like a human without evidence.

Concerns about subjective perception of consciousness
Perception issues

Bengio stressed that the subjective perception of consciousness could lead to bad decisions.

He drew a parallel with an alien species coming to Earth with nefarious intentions.

"Do we grant them citizenship and rights or do we defend our lives?" he asked, highlighting the potential dangers of misjudging AI's intentions.