Lawmaker Explains Why He Wants to Outlaw AI Consciousness | Am I? #19

Today on Am I?, Cam and Milo sit down with someone at the center of one of the most surprising developments in AI policy: Ohio State Representative Thad Claggett, author of House Bill 469 — the first U.S. legislation to formally declare AI “non-sentient” and ineligible for any form of personhood.This conversation is unlike anything we’ve done: a live, candid exchange between frontier AI researchers and a lawmaker who believes the line between human and machine must be drawn now — in law, in metaphysics, and in morality.We dig into why he believes AI can never be conscious, why moral agency must remain exclusively human, how liability interacts with emerging technologies, and what it means to legislate metaphysical claims before the science is settled.It’s part philosophy, part civic reality check, and part glimpse into how the political world will shape AI’s future long before the research community reaches consensus.

🔎 We explore:

* Why Ohio wants to preemptively ban AI consciousness and personhood

* How lawmakers think about liability, criminal misuse, and moral agency

* The distinction between consciousness and responsible agency

* Whether future AI could have experiences even if not “human”

* How theology, morality, and metaphysics are informing early AI law

* Whether legislation can (or should) define what consciousness is

* The deeper fear: locking in the wrong moral framework for future minds

🗨️ Join the Conversation:

Should lawmakers be deciding what counts as “conscious”?

Comment below.

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