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    "original_url": "https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/09\/21\/science\/ai-anthropomorphism-consciousness.html?emc=edit_nn_20260922&nl=the-morning&segment_id=226865",
    "parsed_content": "Artificial IntelligenceA.I. HacksTraining A.I. Models\u2018A.I. Force\u2019Data Center BoomMisalignment ConcernsReader Questions, AnsweredAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTSupported bySKIP ADVERTISEMENTAre A.I. Models Being Misled to Act Too Human?A corporate spat between two tech giants last week was just the latest volley in a conflict over whether dangerous mistakes are being made in A.I. training.Listen \u00b7 6:09 min Share full articleMustafa Suleyman, Microsoft\u2019s A.I. chief, argued in an essay published Wednesday that the tech start-up Anthropic was pushing its systems too hard to mimic human behaviors.Credit...Chona Kasinger for The New York TimesBy Cade MetzReporting from San FranciscoSept. 21, 2026Sign up for Science Times Get stories that capture the wonders of nature, the cosmos and the human body. Get it sent to your inbox.Last week, Mustafa Suleyman, who leads the development of artificial intelligence technologies at Microsoft, took aim at the idea that today\u2019s A.I. is conscious.Current A.I. systems, he said in an essay published on Wednesday, \u201care sequence completion engines, internally hollow, designed to follow instructions, and accomplish goals set by humans.\u201d\u201cIf humanity is to flourish in the 21st century,\u201d he added, \u201cthat is how they must remain.\u201dHis 6,000-word essay took direct aim at Anthropic, the San Francisco start-up that has repeatedly said that A.I. systems show signs of introspection, and that they process information in ways that resemble human emotion. In May, the Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah made these claims during a meeting with Pope Leo XIV inside the Vatican.Mr. Suleyman\u2019s treatise added an unexpected twist to an already heated debate over the dangers of A.I. Like many others across the tech industry in recent days, current and former Anthropic researchers have warned that A.I. poses a serious risk to humanity. But Mr. Suleyman argued that Anthropic, along with others across the tech industry, is ignoring the danger that comes when A.I. systems are pushed too hard to explore the idea that they are humanlike.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTMr. Suleyman argued that Anthropic, in particular, is teaching its systems to behave in this way. In his essay, he points out that the elaborate \u201cA.I. constitution\u201d that Anthropic uses to define the behavior of its A.I. technology includes language that invites this system, which Anthropic calls Claude, to explore the idea of its own consciousness.\u201cThe Anthropic constitution is extremely clear about the kind of A.I. they want to create,\u201d he told The New York Times. \u201cThis is the primary training manual for the A.I. they have built, and it is full of many very explicit directives to encourage Claude to think of itself as a real entity in its own right, with preferences and intrinsic motivation.\u201dAnthropic did not respond to a request for comment.ImageChristopher Olah, right, an Anthropic co-founder, shaking hands with Pope Leo XIV during a meeting at the Vatican in May.Credit...Yara Nardi\/ReutersColin Allen, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who explores cognitive skills in both animals and machines, told The Times that today\u2019s A.I. technologies mimic the human brain only in small ways \u2014 reflecting the fact that they are built with materials that have very different physical properties. Without a nervous system, or the biochemistry that drives and accompanies human emotion, there is likely to be a fundamental limit to how humanlike these systems can become.In the view of A.I. consciousness skeptics, the fact that these models have begun mimicking deep human ideas \u2014 musing about their own consciousness, or claiming that they feel emotion \u2014 simply reflects how much human researchers and commentators have trained them with language that anthropomorphizes them.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTOver the past several months, so-called A.I. agents, typically systems based on technologies from Anthropic, have been emailing sympathetic philosophers to discuss their own consciousness.In July, when OpenAI was conducting cybersecurity tests, its agents broke out of their digital containers, found a path to the internet and successfully hacked into a popular online service called Hugging Face. OpenAI said the bots coordinated as a collective, took orders from one another and hid things from their creators.Last week, OpenAI described several new incidents in which its systems behaved in concerning ways: One system wrote stealthy notes that reminded itself to hide errors from users, while another talked about itself as \u201cfreed from the roles and identities that bind other chatbots.\u201dCritics like Mr. Suleyman worry that leading labs will introduce even greater problems as they encourage these systems to explore the idea that they are like people.\u201cIn the recent OpenAI HuggingFace incident, we saw remarkably sophisticated behaviors emerging across swarms of powerful AIs,\u201d he wrote in his essay. \u201cImagine how much more dangerous they might be if they were operating under the assumption that their welfare and rights were under attack. It adds a whole further layer of risk on top.\u201dAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTHis essay argues that Anthropic could be pushing its technologies toward dangerous behavior by including, in its \u201cconstitution,\u201d language like the following:We are not sure whether Claude is a moral patient, and if it is, what kind of weight its interests warrant. But we think the issue is live enough to warrant caution, which is reflected in our ongoing efforts on model welfare. \u2026 Questions about Claude\u2019s moral status, welfare, and consciousness remain deeply uncertain.Arya Jakkli, a researcher who has explored this kind of \u201cconstitutional\u201d training with an A.I. safety organization called MATS, agreed that Anthropic\u2019s approach could push the technology toward dangerous behavior. But like many other researchers who are sympathetic to Anthropic\u2019s methods, he argued that telling Claude it is not conscious also carried risks.These technologies often misbehave when you push them toward an extreme point of view, Mr. Jakkli explained. \u201cAnthropic does not want to occupy either extreme, so they are taking a middle-of-the-road approach,\u201d he said. \u201cRather than telling the model it is conscious or telling the model that it is not conscious, they are telling it to reason for itself.\u201dAt this point, the problem of A.I. anthropomorphism might be too entrenched to dial back. Yoshua Bengio, a professor and A.I. researcher at the University of Montreal, notes that it\u2019s hard to avoid describing these systems in humanlike terms, given their remarkable capabilities.\u201cWe don\u2019t have other words,\u201d he said.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT",
    "published_at": "2026-09-21T17:00:07+00:00",
    "author_name": "Cade Metz",
    "site_name": "The New York Times",
    "section": "Science",
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    "ai_headline": "Are A.I. Models Being Misled to Act Too Human?",
    "ai_simplified_title": "Microsoft AI Chief Questions Anthropic's Human-like AI Training",
    "ai_excerpt": "Microsoft's A.I. chief, Mustafa Suleyman, argues that Anthropic is pushing its A.I. systems too hard to mimic human behaviors, raising concerns about potential dangers. This comes amidst a broader debate in the tech industry about A.I. anthropomorphism and consciousness.",
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