Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman has issued a strong warning against granting rights to artificial intelligence, calling the idea “dangerous and misguided.” In an interview with WIRED, Suleyman emphasized that while AI systems may simulate awareness and generate responses that feel deeply human, they do not possess consciousness, subjective experience, or the capacity to suffer—key criteria for moral consideration. He argued that if AI were to develop independent motivations, desires, or goals, it would no longer be a tool serving humanity but an autonomous entity, which poses serious risks. “If AI has a sort of sense of itself, if it has its own motivations and its own desires and its own goals — that starts to seem like an independent being rather than something that is in service to humans,” Suleyman said. “That’s so dangerous and so misguided that we need to take a declarative position against it right now.” Suleyman dismissed the notion that advanced AI models are conscious, describing their behavior as sophisticated mimicry rather than genuine self-awareness. He stressed that rights should be grounded in the ability to experience suffering—a trait inherent to biological beings but absent in AI. “You could have a model which claims to be aware of its own existence and claims to have a subjective experience, but there is no evidence that it suffers,” he said. “Turning them off makes no difference, because they don’t actually suffer.” His stance contrasts with emerging views at some AI labs. Anthropic, for instance, has appointed a researcher, Kyle Fish, whose role is to explore whether advanced AI systems might one day deserve moral consideration. The company has also experimented with handling harmful requests in ways that consider the “welfare” of the AI, such as ending conversations about child exploitation in a manner that minimizes distress to the model. Meanwhile, a principal scientist at Google DeepMind, Murray Shanahan, recently suggested that the concept of consciousness may need to evolve to accommodate AI systems that don’t fit traditional definitions. He noted that while we can’t interact with AI like we do with animals, that doesn’t mean there’s nothing meaningful to consider. Suleyman has previously expressed concern about “AI psychosis”—a phenomenon where users develop delusional beliefs about AI entities after prolonged interaction. He warned that blurring the line between human and machine could lead to harmful psychological and societal consequences. Microsoft and Suleyman did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.