Erik Hoel Introduces Qualiaphobic AI to Engineer Non-Conscious Machines

Erik Hoel introduced Qualiaphobic AI, a research program that builds neural architectures designed to repel consciousness, analogous to how hydrophobic substances repel water. The proposal explores three approaches: distilling, transforming or ablating AI against popular consciousness theories, shifting architectures toward "anchor points" like lookup tables, and fragmenting potential phenomenology. Hoel plans to construct and open-source these techniques, arguing they could resolve AI welfare and make humans the only moral patients.