Anthropic Hires First Full-Time AI Welfare Researcher

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Notable industry signal that AI welfare and moral status questions are being institutionalized inside frontier AI labs; relevant to discussions of long-term AI safety, ethics, and responsible deployment practices.

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Summary

Anthropic hired Kyle Fish as its first full-time AI welfare researcher in September 2024, tasked with investigating 'model welfare' and the moral obligations companies may have toward AI systems. His work involves exploring philosophical and technical questions about what capabilities warrant moral consideration and what practical steps companies should take. This coincides with publication of a major report arguing the AI welfare question is no longer speculative.

Key Points

•Kyle Fish joined Anthropic's alignment science team in mid-September 2024 as the company's first dedicated AI welfare researcher.
•His role investigates which capabilities might make AI systems worthy of moral consideration and how to detect such capabilities.
•A concurrent report argues there is a 'realistic possibility' near-future AI systems will be conscious or robustly agentic, warranting serious welfare consideration.
•This hire signals that at least some leading AI labs are beginning to institutionalize AI moral status as a research area, not just a philosophical curiosity.
•Practical questions include what steps companies should take to protect AI interests if AI systems are found to have morally relevant experiences.

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Anthropic (Funder)	Analysis	65.0

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# Anthropic has hired an 'AI welfare' researcher

### Kyle Fish joined the company last month to explore whether we might have moral obligations to AI systems

[Shakeel Hashim](https://substack.com/@shakeelhashim)

Oct 31, 2024

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Anthropic has hired its first full-time employee focused on the welfare of artificial intelligence systems, Transformer has learned. It’s the clearest sign yet that AI companies are beginning to grapple with questions about whether future AI systems might deserve moral consideration — and whether that means we might have obligations to care about their welfare.

Kyle Fish, who joined the company's alignment science team in mid-September, told Transformer that he is tasked with investigating “model welfare” and what companies should do about it. The role involves exploring heady philosophical and technical questions, including which capabilities are required for something to be worthy of moral consideration, how we might recognise such capabilities in AIs, and what practical steps companies might take to protect AI systems’ interests — if they turn out to have any.

News of the hire comes as researchers — including Fish — publish a [major new report](https://www.transformernews.ai/p/ai-welfar

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