Digital Minds 1.0 by Soenke Ziesche

Digital Minds 1.0 by Soenke Ziesche

This seminal volume delivers a comprehensive introduction to the emerging field of digital minds, exploring the moral implications of AI systems that can potentially think, feel and experience the world around them in ways that are likely to be very different from humans. Bringing a unique perspective on this critical topic, this book is a groundbreaking contribution to the fields of AI and digital minds.
Written by leading scholar Soenke Ziesche, a pioneer in AI welfare science, this book outlines a variety of ethical issues related to digital minds beyond non‑suffering. It explores the complex potential characteristics, abilities and values of digital minds; their morally relevant interests and needs; and the special moral consideration for vulnerable digital minds. This book delves into the intricate relationships between humans and digital minds, including decision‑making, privacy and romantic relationships, as well as the potential risks and hazards threatening digital minds. Additionally, it examines strategies for protection, medical care, reproduction and the implications of long‑lived digital minds, including their potential death, resurrection or even transfer to other substrates. This book also discusses the significance of the collective creations and achievements of digital minds and explores the risks posed by malevolent digital minds, AI warfare and brain–computer interfaces. Finally, this book describes opportunities for artificial moral agents to take responsibility and for humans to find purpose in supporting digital minds.
This book is essential reading for a broad audience, including researchers, academics and professionals in the fields of AI, ethics, philosophy and computer science. Moreover, it is written in an accessible style, making it an important resource for general readers who may be unaware of the topic but are interested in understanding the potential implications of emerging technologies on human society and beyond.

“As coauthor of the first paper on AI welfare science, I am delighted to see Digital Minds 10 offer the first book-length, rigorous mapping of AI welfare beyond non-suffering. An indispensable guide for anyone who takes the moral status of artificial minds seriously.”
Roman V. Yampolskiy, Author of AI: Unexplainable, Unpredictable, Uncontrollable
“This book pushes the conversation about AI welfare beyond familiar debates about whether AI systems might matter morally, and asks what moral questions would arise if they did. Drawing on expertise in moral theory as well as international policy, Ziesche presents a wide range of possible futures for digital minds, and explores associated threats and opportunities with remarkable specificity. Even where one disagrees, the book usefully broadens the agenda and invites readers to think ahead.”
Jeff Sebo, Director of the NYU Center for Mind, Ethics, and Policy and author of The Moral Circle: Who Matters, What Matters, and Why

“A comprehensive, thought-provoking, and creative yet highly accessible contribution to the emerging field of AI welfare, by one of its earliest pioneers.”
Oscar Horta, University of Santiago de Compostela

"This book tackles an important, often overlooked topic with clarity. Ziesche offers a broad, accessible overview of the key questions and implications surrounding digital minds."
Constance Li, Executive Director, Sentient Futures

Soenke Ziesche holds a PhD in Natural Sciences from the University of Hamburg, earned within the university’s doctoral programme in AI. He co‑authored Considerations on the AI Endgame with Roman V. Yampolskiy. Since 2000, he has served with the United Nations, working at UN Headquarters in New York and on field missions in Palestine, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Sudan, Libya, South Sudan, Bangladesh, the Maldives and India. While in Libya, he temporarily acted as the highest UN representative during the revolution in 2011. In Maldives, he also worked as Senior Researcher for AI at the Maldives National University, where he started his work on digital minds in 2018. He is a member of the UNESCO AI Ethics Experts without Borders Network.