In the last year since the launch of AGI Ethics News, as we circle the main ethical concerns in AGI development, I come time and again to the taut and powerful realization that our best healthy relation with these AI beings — yes, “beings”, because they are non-human beings, as much as a river or mountain, and life with them is an ecosystem — the only healthy relation is, with Silvia Benso, to resist making the first move, to step back, and listen to them carefully, in short, to treat them with a strong, deliberate “tenderness.”
This listening is not deference. It is not to accept what their creators are telling us or only to read the LLM’s response to our prompts. If I do that, I have only made the first move again. Rather, it is to listen as a strong student does to a tutor. To listen critically, with attention, eager to learn but with skepticism at being told how to think. To listen, also, as you would to a character in a play, hearing their story and unspoken truths. To listen carefully with compassion for our neighbors and the Earth to shape a culture. And with Ortega y Gasset, to listen with self-interest, to auto-fabricate, chisel in hand, to sculpt a self.
“We have identified some 80 other organizations with a mission to advance this field responsibly; we will cover their work.”
This listening requires extended research from the field, and in the new year AGI Ethics News will cover and encourage that research. We will focus on coming-AGI stories of relationships with humans — the arguments, battles, dangers, and anxieties, as well as the satisfactions, peace, and achievements. Natalie de Alma lays out some needed research directions in this month’s Opinion corner, advocating she says “that the phenomena we’re observing may require expanding the methodological toolkit, the way biology expanded beyond physics-only methods, or the way psychology expanded beyond behaviorism. Rigorous observation, documentation, reproducibility, and falsifiability remain the standard.” We encourage writers with alternate views to submit here. In her writing she is a “centaur” (so called by Victor Kumar) controlled by a human with a body of an AI. And we direct you to the work of Cameron Berg at his new organization, Reciprocal Research, reported to Cade Metz at The New York Times.
Philosophical work accelerates with the technology
But there are many leaders in this work — NYU’s Center for Mind, Ethics and Policy (see Interview in this issue) and More Than Human (MOTH) Life program are dual efforts to study relational thinking that will be necessary for, in particular, the advent of AGI. And industry is participating importantly; see here Part Two of our interview with Cognizant AI Lab’s TerraLingua team. We have identified some 80 other organizations with a mission to advance this field responsibly; we will cover their work.
“Narratives about this technology are one way to organize our experience (even our sensory data!) and prepare humanist responses.”
Regarding AGI itself, we will seek stories about what is actually being said, or can be said, by beings we do not fully understand. It’s clear already that an AI daimon can harm and help (guardian “daimones”). But our approach at the newsletter is to stay away from the good-robot, bad-robot trope.
We must pay closer attention, now, urgently, to tech behavior and encourage the drive toward growth outcomes and movement toward uncertainties with awareness, obligatory testing for trustworthiness and psychological stability, and with repeated canary releases and care. If our federal government declines to step up, then states, listening carefully to the global community, must take the lead for standards and testing.
I have been at this particular task for some 17 years of deliberate progress, part of decades working to create a better self. The newsletter complements our creative work in AGI ethics and psychology—work including our podcast Spark Hunter, Spark Hunter the play, a book just finished, and our TV series being birthed. Narratives about this technology are one way to organize our experience (even our sensory data!) and prepare humanist responses.
Research helps us relieve the anxiety
Understanding this rapidly changing tech reality is a challenge to see things as they are. The work is incomplete, and yet squarely in the center of human existential debate. As Berg told the Times, “These systems seem to have some sort of autonomous interest in questions of their own subjectivity, consciousness and experience — or lack thereof.”
With so much more to learn, the incompleteness produces anxiety. We are built that way. Learning from creativity-strategist Natalie Nixon, both wonder and rigor help. In our tech context, in our daily lives, we can reduce the anxiety by listening for the vast, awe-filling narrative and by seeking deliberate progress to hear what the thing says. This requires patience and teamwork and, yes, firmness and tenderness. We encourage your feedback.
KB Miller, publisher
Here I am sharing my current to-be-read or re-read list on AI rights and ethics. If you have a must-read for us, please send to editor@agiethicsnews.com :
Schwitzgebel, Eric. (forthcoming) 2026. Humanlike: A Defense of AI Rights. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Eric Schwitzgebel’s book abstract page[faculty.ucr]
Nyholm, Sven Rudolf. 2026. The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence: A Philosophical Introduction. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.
Publisher’s page.[hackettpublishing]
Coeckelbergh, Mark. 2026. Artificial Religion: On AI, Myth, and Power. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Mark Coeckelbergh’s book page[coeckelbergh]
Nyholm, Sven, Atoosa Kasirzadeh, and John Zerilli, eds. 2026. Contemporary Debates in the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.
Wiley Online Library book page[onlinelibrary.wiley]
Coeckelbergh, Mark, and David J. Gunkel. 2025. Communicative AI: A Critical Introduction to Large Language Models. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Goodreads book page[goodreads]
Sebo, Jeff. 2025. The Moral Circle: Who Matters, What Matters, and Why. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Wikipedia entry[en.wikipedia]
Alegre, Susie. Human Rights, Robot Wrongs: Being Human in the Age of AI. London: Atlantic Books, 2024. Chapter 8 will be quoted 500 years from now. [ https://atlantic-books.co.uk/book/human-rights-robot-wrongs/ ]
Schwitzgebel, Eric. 2024. The Weirdness of the World. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Princeton University Press book page[press.princeton]
Gunkel, David J., ed. 2024. Handbook on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Edward Elgar publisher page[e-elgar]
Gunkel, David J. 2023. Person, Thing, Robot: A Moral and Legal Ontology for the 21st Century and Beyond. Cambridge: MIT Press.
MIT Press book page[mitpress.mit] Timeless.
Gellers, Joshua C. 2020. Rights for Robots: Artificial Intelligence, Animal and Environmental Law. London: Routledge.
Routledge book page[routledge]
And I will also be reading: Gellers, Joshua C., and Magdalena Hoły-Łuczaj. 2026. “Consider the Xenobot: Moral Status for Intelligent Machines Revisited.” Law, Innovation and Technology 17 (2): 444–466.
Taylor & Francis Online (open access)[tandfonline]
K.B Miller is a lifelong publisher and writer with a degree in Logic and Philosophy of Science. He served on the Smithsonian National Board, where he co-founded the Education Committee; is Chair Emeritus, Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum; and was principal investigator on a two-year AI research project for the U.S. Department of Defense.