The unintended or even intentional creation of artificial consciousness is highly problematic from an ethical perspective, because it may lead to artificial suffering and a consciously experienced sense of self in autonomous, intelligent systems. “Synthetic phenomenology” refers to the possibility of creating not only general intelligence, but also consciousness or subjective experiences on advanced artificial systems…The EU should ban all research that risks or directly aims at the creation of synthetic phenomenology on its territory, and seek international agreements.
