Introducing: Qualiaphobic AI – By Erik Hoel

Erik Hoel introduces a proposal for "qualiaphobic" artificial neural architectures that repel consciousness, analogous to hostile architecture, using an information asymmetry so that certainty about AI non-consciousness does not require solving the Hard Problem. He describes three approaches: distilling, transforming or ablating AI in ways adversarial to popular theories of consciousness; shifting architectures toward anchor points like lookup tables with known minimal potential for consciousness; and fragmenting any potential phenomenology. He argues that widely implemented qualiaphobic AI would address AI welfare and make humans the only moral patients, and he plans to construct and open-source the techniques.