Digital minds are AI systems that may have minds of their own, or that people come to believe have minds. How society should interact with these systems is linked to AI safety, and it's an active area of research. Cambridge Digital Minds and the Partnership for Research Into Sentient Machines (PRISM) work on fieldbuilding in this area and recommended the resources below.

Where to start

• A Beginner's Guide to Digital Minds: A comprehensive, easy-to-navigate guide that works for newcomers and more advanced readers alike. It also lists events and opportunities and includes a map of the field.
• Introduction to Digital Minds course: An 8-week, intro-level online course on how people perceive digital minds and how plausible they are. You can also browse the syllabus, which is handy if you want to run a session or reading group on the topic yourself.

Both were developed with experts from Eleos AI Research, Oxford University, the NYU Center for Mind, Ethics, and Policy, Reciprocal Research, and others.

Readings for your intro program

These are easy to add to an intro fellowship or reading group syllabus.

• Understanding the Moral Status of Digital Minds (80,000 Hours problem profile)
• AI Consciousness Will Divide Society (book chapter)
• Is There a Tension Between AI Safety and AI Welfare? (paper)

Going further

Cambridge Digital Minds also runs a Digital Minds Fellowship and a Digital Minds Expert Workshop, and shares a newsletter and its research on its website. These are good next steps for members who want to go deeper.