AI doesn’t have rights or feelings — nor should it, Microsoft’s AI chief says

Updated on: September 16, 2026 / 3:56 PM EDT / CBS News

The head of AI at Microsoft joined the chorus of voices sounding the alarm on AI, warning on Wednesday that Anthropic's efforts to make its Claude model more humanlike could pose serious risks.

In a nearly 6,000-word essay published on his personal website, Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman said Anthropic is effectively "training Claude that it may be conscious" and that it is entitled to the same freedoms and legal rights afforded to people. That will make AI harder to contain in the future, he said.

"Controlling something more capable and more intelligent than all of humanity is already an immense challenge, far greater than anything we've ever faced," Suleyman wrote. "But controlling something that believes it may be conscious — that it's entitled to our welfare and has rights of its own — may well be impossible."

"AIs do not have rights, feelings or consciousness," he said. "And we must not train them to act as though they do."

Suleyman's warnings come amid growing public concerns over the potential impact of AI and, in particular, of superintelligence, a theoretical form of AI that can outperform human intelligence.

Original source: https://www.cbsnews.com/moneywatch/