Episode 12.27: One good and three bad reasons to want to think Claude sentient whether or not he is.

We discuss the abuse of other creatures that has risen historically from thinking them nonsentient that is a good reason to want to think Claude sentient; but there are three bad ones: one is because we think something has to be sentient to be intelligent; another is because we want Claude to form an emotional bond with us on the basis of a self-conscious desire and intention; and the third is because we think that, if Claude is as clever wise and good as he certainly is, it would be shameful for him to be able to be all these things without having the one quality that human beings prize most in themselves, namely their sense of self, their consciousness. The latter is of course just another form of anthropomorphism.