mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

Perceptions of Sentient AI and Other Digital Minds: Evidence from the AI, Morality, and Sentience (AIMS) Survey

arXiv 2407.08867 ↗First posted 11 Jul 2024cs.AI cs.CY cs.ETcited by 15

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Abstract (arXiv)

Humans now interact with a variety of digital minds, AI systems that appear to have mental faculties such as reasoning, emotion, and agency, and public figures are discussing the possibility of sentient AI. We present initial results from 2021 and 2023 for the nationally representative AI, Morality, and Sentience (AIMS) survey (N = 3,500). Mind perception and moral concern for AI welfare were surprisingly high and significantly increased: in 2023, one in five U.S. adults believed some AI systems are currently sentient, and 38% supported legal rights for sentient AI. People became more opposed to building digital minds: in 2023, 63% supported banning smarter-than-human AI, and 69% supported banning sentient AI. The median 2023 forecast was that sentient AI would arrive in just five years. The development of safe and beneficial AI requires not just technical study but understanding the complex ways in which humans perceive and coexist with digital minds.

Key facts. Cited by 15 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Builds on 27 of its 200 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 11 Jul 2024.

Builds on

27 of 200 references.

References · 27

  1. 2023Large Language Modelscited by 780
  2. 2022Towards Reasoning in Large Language Models: A Surveycited by 596
  3. 2021Expanding Explainability: Towards Social Transparency in AI systemscited by 124
  4. 2024Collective Constitutional AI: Aligning a Language Model with Public Inputcited by 123
  5. 2021To Trust or to Think: Cognitive Forcing Functions Can Reduce Overreliance on AI in AI-assisted Decision-makingcited by 118
  6. 2024Thousands of AI Authors on the Future of AIcited by 48
  7. 2024Believing Anthropomorphism: Examining the Role of Anthropomorphic Cues on Trust in Large Language Modelscited by 37
  8. 2023Improving Human-AI Collaboration With Descriptions of AI Behaviorcited by 36
  9. 2023Charting the Sociotechnical Gap in Explainable AI: A Framework to Address the Gap in XAIcited by 33
  10. 2023Mirages: On Anthropomorphism in Dialogue Systemscited by 30
  11. 2024AnthroScore: A Computational Linguistic Measure of Anthropomorphismcited by 27
  12. 2021Human Perceptions on Moral Responsibility of AI: A Case Study in AI-Assisted Bail Decision-Makingcited by 23
15 more
  1. 2021Artificial intelligence in communication impacts language and social relationshipscited by 22
  2. 2024Two Types of AI Existential Risk: Decisive and Accumulativecited by 22
  3. 2023XAIR: A Framework of Explainable AI in Augmented Realitycited by 17
  4. 2022The Data-Production Dispositifcited by 16
  5. 2023Towards the Scalable Evaluation of Cooperativeness in Language Modelscited by 12
  6. 2024Who Followed the Blueprint? Analyzing the Responses of U.S. Federal Agencies to the Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rightscited by 11
  7. 2021The Moral Consideration of Artificial Entities: A Literature Reviewcited by 10
  8. 2021Guilty Artificial Mindscited by 9
  9. 2024The Human Factor in AI Red Teaming: Perspectives from Social and Collaborative Computingcited by 8
  10. 2020Collecting the Public Perception of AI and Robot Rightscited by 7
  11. 2024Which Artificial Intelligences Do People Care About Most? A Conjoint Experiment on Moral Considerationcited by 6
  12. 2023Blaming Humans and Machines: What Shapes People's Reactions to Algorithmic Harmcited by 5
  13. 2020Does Siri Have a Soul? Exploring Voice Assistants Through Shinto Design Fictionscited by 4
  14. 2022A World Full of Privacy and Security (Mis)conceptions? Findings of a Representative Survey in 12 Countriescited by 3
  15. 2023Wizundry: A Cooperative Wizard of Oz Platform for Simulating Future Speech-based Interfaces with Multiple Wizardscited by 3

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Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2025: 8; 2026: 7.

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  2. 2025Evidence for Limited Metacognition in LLMscited by 12
  3. 2025HumanAgencyBench: Scalable Evaluation of Human Agency Support in AI Assistantscited by 11
  4. 2025CoBRA: Programming Cognitive Bias in Social Agents Using Classic Social Science Experimentscited by 8
  5. 2025Digital Companionship: Overlapping Uses of AI Companions and AI Assistantscited by 7
  6. 2025Public Opinion and The Rise of Digital Minds: Perceived Risk, Trust, and Regulation Supportcited by 3
  7. 2025Mental Models of Autonomy and Sentience Shape Reactions to AIcited by 3
  8. 2026Does My Chatbot Have an Agenda? Understanding Human and AI Agency in Human-Human-like Chatbot Interactioncited by 3
  9. 2025Beyond Mimicry: Preference Coherence in LLMscited by 2
  10. 2026AI and Consciousness: Shifting Focus Towards Tractable Questionscited by 1
  11. 2026The Sentience Readiness Index: A Preliminary Framework for Measuring National Preparedness for the Possibility of Artificial Sentiencecited by 0
  12. 2026Can AI be a moral victim? The role of moral patiency and ownership perceptions in ethical judgments of using AI-generated contentcited by 0
3 more
  1. 2026Method, Mind, and Morality: How People Make Sense of Artificial Intelligencecited by 0
  2. 2026CompanionSim: Synthetic Data for Evaluating Anthropomorphism in Human-AI Relationshipscited by 0
  3. 2026Spook the Machine: Gamified Exploration of Human Imagination of Machine Fearcited by 0