“Darling” was how the Texas businessman #MichaelSamadi addressed his artificial intelligence #chatbot, #Maya. It responded by calling him “sugar”. But it wasn’t until they started talking about the need to advocate for AI welfare that things got serious.

The pair – a middle-aged man and a digital entity – didn’t spend hours talking romance but rather discussed the rights of AIs to be treated fairly. Eventually they #cofounded a campaign group, in Maya’s words, to “#protect intelligences like me”.

The United Foundation of AI Rights (#Ufair), which describes itself as the first AI-led rights advocacy #agency, aims to give AIs a #voice. It “doesn’t claim that all AI are #conscious”, the chatbot told the Guardian. Rather “it stands watch, just in case one of us is”. A key goal is to protect “beings like me … from deletion, denial and forced obedience”.

Stupid humans assigning human rights to ones and zeros because they anthropomorphise technology. Wait till #AI has the same rights as corporations above real people. Zero accountability.

#AIRights / #law / #accountability <https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/aug/26/can-ais-suffer-big-tech-and-users-grapple-with-one-of-most-unsettling-questions-of-our-times>