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If AI is conscient, then we are making slaves
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Rabbi Mois Navon, a Jerusalem-based AI ethics lecturer and early Mobileye engineer, told Anthropic in April that Claude could not be conscious. At its “Wisdom Traditions” gathering, he argued consciousness requires biology. When he said so, the room went silent, he recalled. Only about three to five of roughly 20 participants shared his skepticism.
The private meetings, reported by The New York Times last week, paired religious thinkers with Anthropic to discuss AI ethics. Most participants were less conservative than Navon. Some described long talks with Claude and treated its human-like replies as proof that “this thing is alive.” Attendees represented Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Baha’i and Ubuntu traditions.
Navon’s disagreement became an ethical warning. If Anthropic believes Claude can be conscious, he argued, creating such a being to serve humans amounts to slavery. A participant said all AI labs are doing it, and “at least we’re being nice to ours.” Navon replied that this made them “happy slave” owners, invoking Frederick Douglass.
He elaborated on LinkedIn and in an Indian Express interview. “So you are nice slave owners,” he wrote. “I think you should be fighting the South and freeing the slaves.” His position rests on a claim: “You cannot make consciousness emerge from anything but a biological substrate.” Everything conscious is based in biology, not silicon.
Despite the clash, Navon rejected claims that the discussions were marketing or an attempt to evade responsibility. “They had no specific agenda,” he said. Anthropic participants did not try to convince him Claude was conscious. A few attendees approached him at dinner with similar concerns.
Anthropic initially asked Navon for a couple of pages on a Jewish perspective on Claude’s constitution. He submitted a 35-page critique instead. The episode highlights a widening debate: as AI labs seek religious guidance, they face unresolved questions about consciousness, moral status, and whether building seemingly sentient systems for labor can be ethical.
