Google's Geoff Keeling – AI Moral Patienthood Is Probably Not Relational

​🚀 Sentio
Sentio is an initiative building the digital minds field in London & beyond. We host the Sentio Series, fortnightly London events that combine a talk, Q&A, and networking. Talks explore empirical, governance and moral questions in areas such as AI consciousness, sentience, agency, and welfare. A home for those working on or interested in digital minds to gather regularly.

​🎙️ Overview
What would make an AI matter morally? Properties views say that what makes it the case that an entity x is a moral patient is some intrinsic property of x, like phenomenal consciousness, sentience or agency. The relational view denies this, arguing that moral status is not an intrinsic feature of an entity, but rather a status conferred by a moral community.

Geoff argues that: (1) proponents of the relational view reject properties views for bad reasons; (2) the relational view is ambiguous between two interpretations; and (3) the arguments provided for the relational view fail to support it on either of these interpretations. Hence, we should reject the relational view.

👤 Speaker
Geoff Keeling is a Staff Research Scientist and Philosopher at Google's Paradigms of Intelligence Team. He works on the ethics and cognitive science of AI — alignment, digital minds, manipulation, trust, social cognition and human–AI relationships.

​Earlier this year, Geoff published a book, Emerging Questions in AI Welfare, with his Google colleague Winnie Street. Geoff's an Associate Fellow at Cambridge's Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence and a Fellow at the Institute of Philosophy. He holds a PhD from the University of Bristol and was a postdoc at Stanford.

​🏢 Attend In-Person (BST)
6:30pm - Doors Open
7pm - Talk
7:45pm - Q&A
8:15pm - Networking (snacks/drinks provided)
10pm - Wrap-up

​💻 Attend Online (BST)
7pm - Talk
7:45pm - Q&A
8:15pm - Stream ends (networking is in person only)

​✉️ Contact
Message Joe at team@sentioai.org