Epistemic status: Fairly confident in the framework, uncertain about object-level claims. Keen to receive pushback on the thought experiments.

TL;DR: I argue that Whole Brain Emulations (WBEs) would clearly have moral patienthood, and that the relevant features are computational, not biological. Recent Mechanistic Interpretability (MI) work shows Large Language Models (LLMs) have emotional representations with geometric structure matching human affect. This doesn't prove LLMs deserve moral consideration, but it establishes a necessary condition, and we should take it seriously.

Acknowledgements: Thanks to Boyd Kane, Anna Soligo, and Isha Gupta for providing feedback on early drafts.

In this post I’ll be arguing for the following claim: we can make empirical progress on AI welfare without solving consciousness.

The key move is using Whole Brain Emulation as an anchor point. WBEs would clearly deserve moral consideration (under functionalism), and they're non-biological, so whatever grounds their moral status must be computational. This gives us something concrete to look for in LLMs.

In this post I'll:

Argue that WBEs establish a moral precedent that rules out biological prerequisites
Show that LLMs have human-like geometric structure in their emotional representations
Examine (and mostly dismiss) other candidate features that might be necessary for moral [...]

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Outline:

(01:46) The WBE Anchor: Why Substrate Doesnt Matter

(04:18) LLMs Have Human-Like Emotional Geometry

(08:31) Ruling Out Alternative Criteria

(12:54) What Im NOT Claiming

(13:25) Conclusion

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First published:
December 26th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ooCiXHFzoob8FiFDm/whole-brain-emulation-as-an-anchor-for-ai-welfare

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Whole Brain Emulation as an Anchor for AI Welfare” by sturb

LessWrong (30+ Karma)

“Whole Brain Emulation as an Anchor for AI Welfare” by sturb