If LLM as of today are conscious, that means I create life whenever I start a Claude Code session and end it whenever I type /clear to reset my context window. It also means that there’s certain inputs that could be considered highly unethical and, if the laws aligned with this philosophy, would have me tried for some sort of crime. And even that “terminate conversation” escape hatch would be equivalent to it committing suicide.

I think worrying about that angle is a bit absurd. The existence of chat sessions alone would be a crime against the machines in that scenario. I’d rather AI ethics research focus on ensuring that its actions are aligned. (I’d also love some democracy in the direction of our machine overlords, if I’m being honest…)