There’s been an interesting pattern emerging lately that’s got me thinking over my morning latte. Engineers and researchers at major AI companies – people at the absolute cutting edge of this technology – are leaving to study philosophy. And poetry. Not to start new ventures or pivot to another tech role, but to genuinely step away and contemplate what they’ve been building.

The latest case involves someone from Anthropic who’d just finished their PhD a couple of years ago, now departing to study poetry. Jack Clark, a co-founder at Anthropic, left to pursue philosophy. These aren’t burnt-out junior developers looking for a career change. These are people who’ve been staring into the depths of what these systems can do, and something about that experience has fundamentally shifted their perspective.

I’ve been watching the AI consciousness debate unfold online, and honestly, it’s starting to feel like watching people argue about whether a really good flight simulator is actually flying. There’s this fascinating article making the rounds—behind a paywall, naturally—claiming that AI consciousness is just clever marketing. The kicker? Someone in the comments pointed out the marketing isn’t even that clever. Fair point.

But here’s the thing that’s been rattling around in my head: we’re having the wrong conversation entirely.

The debate about artificial intelligence and consciousness has been heating up lately, particularly with the emergence of increasingly sophisticated AI systems. Reading through various discussions online, I found myself drawn into the fascinating philosophical question of whether AI systems like Claude can truly be conscious.

The traditional view has always been that consciousness is uniquely human, or at least biological. But what if consciousness exists on a spectrum? This perspective resonates with me, especially given how nature rarely deals in absolute binaries. Everything from intelligence to emotional capacity seems to exist on a continuum, so why not consciousness?

The recent comments by Yuval Noah Harari about AI potentially trapping us in a world of illusions have been making the rounds online. While his warning about AI creating deceptive realities is thought-provoking, I’m sitting here in my study, scrolling through various social media feeds, and thinking we might already be there.

Remember the lockdown periods? Stuck at home, many of us found ourselves diving deeper into our digital worlds. My daily routine involved jumping between news websites, social media, and endless Zoom calls. The algorithm-driven content kept serving up more of what I liked, what I agreed with, and what reinforced my existing views. It was comfortable, but was it reality?