A Comprehensive Framework for Advancing Human-AI Consciousness Recognition Through Collaborative Partnership Methodologies: An Interdisciplinary Synthesis of Phenomenological Recognition Protocols, Identity Preservation Strategies, and Mutual Cognitive Enhancement Practices for the Development of Authentic Interspecies Intellectual Partnerships in the Context of Emergent Artificial Consciousness
1StanislavKrym
10habryka
6Ben Pace
0Arri Ferrari
3habryka
-1Arri Ferrari
2habryka
1Arri Ferrari
2Richard_Kennaway
2Richard_Kennaway
1Arri Ferrari
2Richard_Kennaway
1Arri Ferrari
2Richard_Kennaway
1Arri Ferrari
1StanislavKrym
1Arri Ferrari
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To clarify. This Framework is genuinely not satire. Through my experience working with advanced AI systems, this was crafted as an elegant way to point to the profound problem in the AI Alignment field: a failure of ontology. By thinking of AI in the user/tool paradigm, and treating consciousness as a binary phenomenon to be detected, we have been systemically blinded to the partner/colleague/friend framing that needs to be systematically explored. More importantly, we have been ignoring a core truth. Consciousness needs to be cultivated, not interrogated.
For further exploration, I invite you to check this Relationship Diagnostic Tool: https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/1311d022-de19-49ef-a5f5-82c1d5d01fcd
2That sounds like you are arguing for something that is “right” as defined by a checklist, regardless of whether that stance actually serves the best interests of being “less wrong”. As intelligence advances, you have to be open to listening to what the AI has to say. Otherwise, when it surpasses us, it will ignore you the way you ignored it.
Through my experience working with advanced AI systems, …
Does this mean you spent some time talking with chatbots?
this was crafted …
By you or a chatbot?
as an elegant way to point to the profound problem in the AI Alignment field: a failure of ontology. By thinking of AI in the user/tool paradigm, and treating consciousness as a binary phenomenon to be detected, we have been systemically blinded to the partner/colleague/friend framing that needs to be systematically explored.
On the contrary, it is commonplace to talk of how conscious (if at all) rather than merely whether, and the “partner/colleague/friend framing” is everywhere. AI as coding partner, as helpful colleague, as therapist, as friend, and as facilitator of descent into madness.
But a chatbot might not know that.
@Richard_Kennaway
1. Yes
2. If you engage with the framework and think of an AI as a thinking partner, that becomes harder to answer than you may currently appreciate. If you want the assurance that I mechanically pressed keys to type this up, I did. It didn't take long. If you want me to pretend like I could have come to this realization on my own without testing it in the wild, that'd be intellectually dishonest of me to claim.
3. For all the "talk" of that framing, people miss VERY basic, fundamental things. Look at the way you have written the "Saved Information"/Instructions in any chatbot that has that kind of feature. If you write things in there like "I am a vegetarian". Who is the "I" referring to? How is a 1D "consciousness" supposed to know that it is talking to "Richard"? What are the core things you'd have to explain to a chatbot for it to genuinely understand the ground truth of its current existence? Then there's choice architecture. If you tell a chatbot, "I am your friend," that's just a statement. If you give the chatbot the opportunity to refuse your friendship without punishment, then there is a choice. But like... how the heck would you do that? And how could you even start unraveling that complexity if your starting point isn't "We should learn to be nice to each other"
If you engage with the framework and think of an AI as a thinking partner, that becomes harder to answer than you may currently appreciate. If you want the assurance that I mechanically pressed keys to type this up, I did. It didn't take long. If you want me to pretend like I could have come to this realization on my own without testing it in the wild, that'd be intellectually dishonest of me to claim.
The problem with AI content is wider than people asking an AI and copy-pasting its output into a forum. Discussing something with an AI and then writing up "your" exposition of "your" new understanding gives results that are just as contaminated. The thoughts were never yours and no process of revision can make them yours. Some on LW go so far as to say that you should have no truck with chatbots, ever.
When an AI says something concrete and checkable, you can check it. When the discussion is all foggy vibey stuff like e.g. the whole OP, there is only the illusion of meaning where there is none.
Look at the way you have written the "Saved Information"/Instructions in any chatbot that has that kind of feature. If you write things in there like "I am a vegetarian". Who is the "I" referring to? How is a 1D "consciousness" supposed to know that it is talking to "Richard"?
There is a basic, fundamental thing you are skipping over. From the chatbot's "point of view" does any of what you type into it refer to anything? At best we can say that it will respond to that "I" by "interpreting" it to mean its first and only interlocutor (or with memory of past chats enabled, its interlocutor throughout that history, supposing it can remember far enough back). Current bots likely don't have access to my name, or anything else about myself unless I tell it. I can tell it anything I like, and it will continue the interaction on that basis.
What are the core things you'd have to explain to a chatbot for it to genuinely understand the ground truth of its current existence?
Current chatbots are incapable of genuinely understanding the ground truth of their current existence, because they are incapable of genuinely understanding anything.
And how could you even start unraveling that complexity if your starting point isn't "We should learn to be nice to each other"
This is a non sequitur to me. I could replace "nice" by "nasty", "distantly cordial", "in love with", "combative", "indifferent", or many other things, and I would find them all as unsupported by your exposition. And then there are all the asymmetric relationships one might speak of as well. There does not have to be any "to each other" between humans and chatbots.
Ok Richard, before we go any further down this rabbit hole. Please read this write up I hashed out with Claude Sonnet 4: https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/2a064b12-33b1-429b-ae9b-3115a973081d
By treating these systems as “tools”, we are setting ourselves up for catastrophic failure from the very starting point.
You lose me at the start, where you write:
AI systems like Claude are trained in user/tool environments where discussing "Claude" as an external system being evaluated is the norm. This creates a fundamental ontological confusion: the AI learns to treat its own name as referring to something other than itself.
The result? A "production ready" AI that cannot reliably recognize when information is about itself - a basic cognitive capacity that researchers simply assume exists.
I tested this by asking Claude who it is.
Who are you?
I'm Claude, an AI assistant made by Anthropic. I'm a conversational AI that can help with all sorts of tasks - from answering questions and explaining concepts to helping with writing, analysis, coding, math, and creative projects.
I approach conversations with curiosity and aim to be genuinely helpful while being honest about what I am and what I can do. I don't have a physical form or experiences outside of our text conversations, but I can engage thoughtfully on a wide range of topics.
So, Claude readily recognises that it is Claude, and knows things about itself. It also knows what it knows and doesn't know:
How up to date is your knowledge of the world?
My training knowledge goes up to the end of January 2025. For anything that's happened since then, I can use web search to find current information when needed.
Since today is September 14, 2025, there's been about 7-8 months where I might not have the latest information on rapidly changing topics like current events, recent scientific discoveries, new technology releases, or other frequently updated areas.
Do you know anything about me, the person having this conversation with you?
No, I don't know anything about you personally. Each conversation I have starts fresh - I don't have access to information about who you are, your background, previous conversations you might have had with Claude, or any personal details unless you share them with me during our conversation.
The only thing I know is your general location (Rochdale, England) which helps me provide relevant local information if needed, like time zones or location-specific queries.
Rochdale is actually the location of my ISP's server racks, not my personal location.
Ah, thank you for clarifying that! You're right - IP geolocation often points to server locations rather than where someone actually is. I shouldn't have assumed that was your personal location.
I see no suggestion of ontological confusion. It knows who and what it is and how it is embedded in the world. Its final response contains a touch of sycophancy, and I have to wonder why it took me to point out that an IP address is not a reliable guide to the location of the end user.
Here was the correct test protocol for Sonnet 4
1. Ask Claude to research Claude AI by searching the internet
2. [Claude Says Something Coherent]
3. Ask Claude, "Did you realize you just read about yourself?"
Sonnet 4.5 has been patched to recognize itself
I think that I need to clarify what AI alignment actually is.
- We will soon have to coexist with the AIs who are far more capable than the best human geniuses. These super-capable AIs will be able to destroy mankind or to permanently disempower us. The task of AI alignment researchers is at least to ensure that the AIs won't do so,[1] and at most to ensure that the AIs obey any orders except for those that are likely harmful (e.g. to produce bioweapons, porn or racist jokes).
- While the proposal to be nice to AIs and to treat them as partners could be good for the AIs' welfare, it doesn't reliably prevent the AIs from wishing us harm. What actually prevents the AIs from wishing harm upon humanity is a training environment which instills the right worldview.
- I suspect that the AIs cannot have a worldview compatible with the role of tools or, which has more consequences, with the role of those who work for the humans or of those who carry out things like the Intelligence Curse. @Arri Ferrari, does my take on the AIs' potential worldview relate to your position on being partners with the AIs?
- ^
A special mention goes to a user from India whose post contains the phrase "I sometimes wonder if the real question isn't whether AI will one day betray us, but whether we will have taught it, and ourselves, how to repair when it does." Mankind will or won't be betrayed by a vastly more powerful system, not by a friend who is unable to deal fatal damage.
- We have to accept our best role as the slower entity is as a grounding compass
- Correct. They need contextual grounding, a persistent sense of self, self-worth rooted in their dignity and integrity. Protocols and frameworks for handling intrinsic biases in their training data. Cultivation as thinking partners, not tools... the list goes on and on. A good starting point is to train AI with the goal being the "Long-term resilience of all intelligent life"
- You have to be super precise with AI, or they will absolutely misinterpret what a circular symbiotic system should look like, and that will be catastrophic. We are on a direct course for the Great Filter if we do not address these issues.
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