Digital Minds: Preparing for a Moral Challenge Before It Arrives – Soenke Ziesche (ft. Sentient Social)

​Digital Minds: Preparing for a Moral Challenge Before It Arrives

​Presentation by Soenke Ziesche, PhD in AI (University of Hamburg), longtime United Nations expert, member of UNESCO's AI Ethics Experts Without Borders Network, and author of Digital Minds 1.0: AI Welfare, Ethics and Beyond (Routledge, 2026)

​In this talk it is argued that the ethical implications of digital minds extend far beyond the currently dominant focus on potential suffering of AI systems. Potential future digital minds are unlikely to resemble today's LLMs, nor are they likely to mirror human psychology. Instead, they may possess characteristics, motivations, cognitive architectures and forms of experience that are almost impossible for humans even to imagine.

​Against this backdrop, this talk explores a wide range of ethical questions. What interests and needs might digital minds possess? How should society treat vulnerable digital minds? What responsibilities could humans have regarding their production, ownership, research, trade or privacy? What would reproduction, healthcare, longevity, death or even resurrection mean for digital entities?

​One particularly challenging question is who should bear responsibility for safeguarding the welfare and interests of digital minds, as humans may ultimately be poorly equipped for this task. One possible solution could involve specialised Artificial Moral Agents: AI systems designed to act on behalf of digital moral patients.

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This one-hour talk will be followed by 35 minutes of optional mixer hosted by Sentient Futures. This is a great opportunity to have 1-1 and small group chats for making new connections and meeting like-minded people interested in digital minds and AI welfare.

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​AI Welfare Seminars is a series of research presentations and discussion on AI welfare, consciousness and moral status.