AI showing signs of self-preservation and humans should be ready to pull plug, says pioneer
A pioneer of AI has criticised calls to grant the technology rights, warning that it was showing signs of self-preservation and humans should be prepared to pull the plug if needed.Yoshua Bengio said giving legal status to cutting-edge AIs would be akin to giving citizenship to hostile extraterrestrials, amid fears that advances in the technology were far outpacing the ability to constrain them.Bengio, chair of a leading international AI safety study, said the growing perception that chatbots were becoming conscious was “going to drive bad decisions”.The Canadian computer scientist also expressed concern that AI models – the technology that underpins tools like chatbots – were showing signs of self-preservation, such as trying to disable oversight systems.A core concern among AI safety campaigners is that powerful systems could develop the capability to evade guardrails and harm humans.
“People demanding that AIs have rights would be a huge mistake,” said Bengio.“Frontier AI models already show signs of self-preservation in experimental settings today, and eventually giving them rights would mean we’re not allowed to shut them down.“As their capabilities and degree of agency grow, we need to make sure we can rely on technical and societal guardrails to control them, including the ability to shut them down if needed.”As AIs become more advanced in their ability to act autonomously and perform “reasoning” tasks, a debate has grown over whether humans should, at some point, grant them rights.A poll by the Sentience Institute, a US thinktank that supports the moral rights of all sentient beings, found that nearly four in 10 US adults backed legal rights for a sentient AI system.
Anthropic, a leading US AI firm, said in August that it was letting its Claude Opus 4 model close down potentially “distressing” conversations with users, saying it needed to protect the AI’s “welfare”,Elon Musk, whose xAI company has developed the Grok chatbot, wrote on his X platform that “torturing AI is not OK”,Robert Long, a researcher on AI consciousness, has said “if and when AIs develop moral status, we should ask them about their experiences and preferences rather than assuming we know best”,Bengio told the Guardian there were “real scientific properties of consciousness” in the human brain that machines could, in theory, replicate – but humans interacting with chatbots wasa “different thing”,He said this was because people tended to assume – without evidence – that an AI was fully conscious in the same way a human is.
“People wouldn’t care what kind of mechanisms are going on inside the AI,” he added.“What they care about is it feels like they’re talking to an intelligent entity that has their own personality and goals.That is why there are so many people who are becoming attached to their AIs.“There will be people who will always say: ‘Whatever you tell me, I am sure it is conscious’ and then others will say the opposite.This is because consciousness is something we have a gut feeling for.
The phenomenon of subjective perception of consciousness is going to drive bad decisions.“Imagine some alien species came to the planet and at some point we realise that they have nefarious intentions for us.Do we grant them citizenship and rights or do we defend our lives?”Responding to Bengio’s comments, Jacy Reese Anthis, who co-founded the Sentience Institute, said humans would not be able to coexist safely with digital minds if the relationship was one of control and coercion.Anthis added: “We could over-attribute or under-attribute rights to AI, and our goal should be to do so with careful consideration of the welfare of all sentient beings.Neither blanket rights for all AI nor complete denial of rights to any AI will be a healthy approach.
”Bengio, a professor at the University of Montreal, earned the “godfather of AI” nickname after winning the 2018 Turing award, seen as the equivalent of a Nobel prize for computing.He shared it with Geoffrey Hinton, who later won a Nobel, and Yann LeCun, the outgoing chief AI scientist at Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta.
Fashion brand LK Bennett on brink of collapse
The upmarket fashion brand LK Bennett appears to be heading for collapse for the second time in six years.On Tuesday the company filed an application with the high court to appoint an administrator to the business, which employs about 280 staff.The move suggests that the clothing chain, which was founded by Linda Bennett in 1990 and is now owned by China-based backers, appears to have failed in its widely publicised efforts to unearth a saviour.Should LK Bennett appoint administrators it will be the second time in recent years it has entered insolvency proceedings – despite its reported high-profile fans, who include the Duchess of Cambridge and the former prime minister Theresa May.In 2019 the business collapsed into administration after its owners failed to find a new financial backer
Jhoots Pharmacy chain could face insolvency after Lloyds Bank high court application
A struggling national pharmacy chain accused of owing its locums £670,000 in unpaid fees has been hit with an application to place the business into insolvency proceedings.Jhoots Chemist, which trades under the name of Jhoots Pharmacy, was named in a high court application to appoint an administrator, submitted on Monday by Lloyds Bank.The move comes after the company – which has run more than 100 outlets – was criticised in the autumn by MPs for not paying locum pharmacists who had worked at the company’s branches on a freelance basis. The chain is run from Walsall in the West Midlands by a businessman called Sarbjit Singh Jhooty.In an urgent parliamentary debate about the status of the group in October, MPs raised concerns about the behaviour of Jhoots pharmacies including over its failure to open branches, management of controlled drugs, and not paying staff, landlords and other suppliers
Five charts that explain the global economic outlook for 2026
The global economy proved to be more resilient in 2025 than had been feared, despite severe headwinds that ranged from Donald Trump’s trade war to geopolitical tensions and the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.Entering the new year, the hope is that the worst of the recent inflation shock has passed, as the world’s most powerful central banks lower interest rates. However, the pre-Covid age of rock-bottom borrowing costs is a distant memory, global growth is slowing and conditions remain fragile.Here are five key charts underpinning the economic outlook for 2026.After years of hype, the catalytic potential of artificial intelligence will feature heavily for the global economy in 2026
Octopus Energy to sell stake in software spin-off Kraken at $8.65bn valuation
Octopus Energy has agreed to sell a stake in its Kraken software arm, in a move that would value the division at $8.65bn (£6.4bn) and could open the way for a stock market flotation.The technology, which it already licenses to some rival suppliers, has been vital to the energy company’s success, making it easier to manage customer billing, smart meters, electric vehicle charging and home batteries to make using renewable power cheaper.Octopus said new investors, including the asset manager Fidelity International and the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board, had joined existing shareholders to acquire a $1bn stake in the business
Renewable energy project approvals hit record high in GB in 2025, data shows
A record number of renewable energy projects were given the go-ahead in Great Britain in 2025, after planning approvals almost doubled year on year, according to an analysis.The energy capacity of new battery, wind, and solar projects that received approval climbed to 45GW this year, 96% higher than in 2024, according to data from Cornwall Insight.The boom was driven by applications to build new battery storage, which almost doubled to 28.6GW this year from 14.9GW in 2024
Marks & Spencer launches ‘nutrient dense’ range for people on weight-loss jabs
Marks & Spencer is targeting weight-loss jab users with a new range of “nutrient dense” food that it claims will satisfy customers who are eating less.The retailer said the range, which launches on 5 January and includes salads, breads, yoghurt bowls and chicken dinners, was “perfectly portioned to contain high amounts of nutrients per calorie”.People across the UK who are trying to lose weight are increasingly turning to jabs such as Wegovy, Zepbound and Saxenda, which suppress users’ appetites.The trend poses new challenges for food retailers such as M&S, which are trying to maintain sales as some customers eat less.The head of food innovation at M&S, Annette Peters, said the new range was “great if customers are reducing their food intake, such as people using the GLP-1 medications
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