Microsoft published an AI code of conduct for its own models on Monday. One passage rejects the idea that a model could deserve welfare or hold rights. Anthropic runs a research programme on that exact question. The two companies are business partners, and Microsoft has $5bn invested in Anthropic.
The Code of Conduct governs the MAI models Microsoft builds in house. A model “is not conscious and should not be designed to imitate consciousness,” it says. Microsoft engineers it to avoid representing as though it has feelings, subjective preferences or intrinsic motivation, the document adds.
The sentence that names the dispute comes next. Microsoft rejects “the pursuit of legal personhood, or the idea that models might deserve welfare, or be entitled to rights,” the document says. A model is a capable, trustworthy tool, it adds, not a subject in its own right.
Anthropic has a programme for the thing Microsoft rejects
Anthropic runs a research programme on model welfare. It has given some Claude models the ability to end abusive conversations. It has also committed to preserving the weights of models it retires. Dario Amodei keeps an open mind on whether a model could be conscious, and has said so.
