ScenarioAI moral status inquiry and conditional welfare governance

AI Moral-Uncertainty Governance Specialist

Also called AI Moral Uncertainty Advisor

An AI Moral-Uncertainty Governance Specialist would design options for how an organisation handles open questions about possible AI moral status. It depends on how AI develops, and no company is hiring for it now.

What they do

The specialist would take a question nobody can settle and turn it into choices an institution can act on. They would map what is known and unknown about possible AI experiences or interests, then draft conditional governance options: what the organisation would do if certain evidence appeared, and what it would do if it did not. They would set out tradeoffs for each option, run scenario exercises with research and policy teams, and design decision processes with clear owners and review points. They would also explain the uncertainty in plain terms to engineers, executives and outside bodies, without presuming that any system is conscious.

What a strong hire delivers

In the first months, a strong hire would produce a clear map of the open questions and the organisation's current exposure to them. They would deliver a small set of conditional governance proposals, each with tradeoff analysis and stated triggers. They would set up a decision process people accept as fair, and write a short public-facing account of how uncertainty is treated. Teams would know who decides what, and when.

How you can tell they are good

Ask them to take one conditional proposal and walk through it. A strong candidate states what would trigger it, what it costs, who decides and what would make them withdraw it. They separate evidence from intuition and say plainly what is unknown. They can explain the same idea to a researcher and to a board. Worry about anyone who is certain either way.

Why it is hard to fill

If this role appears, the people would be very scarce. No established career path exists and no shared title. The work needs philosophical depth, comfort with technical systems and real institutional design experience, which rarely sit in one person. Most candidates would be strong in one area and thin in the others. Expect to assess skills, not job titles, and to accept some stretch.

Where to find them

Today they would come from philosophy of mind, cognitive science, applied ethics and research governance. Look at people in university research ethics bodies, science policy units, standards work and advisory committees. Some would be researchers who have worked on consciousness or animal welfare questions. Others would sit in AI safety or policy teams at labs, think tanks and public bodies, with a taste for institutional design.

Interview questions for an AI Moral-Uncertainty Governance Specialist

  1. Describe a governance process you designed for a question with no agreed evidence base. How did you keep it legitimate?

    Covers who was consulted, how decisions were recorded and how dissent was handled. Shows the process surviving disagreement. Worry if they describe only their own conclusions or confuse a good outcome with a fair process.

  2. How would you advise a team on possible AI interests without assuming any system is conscious?

    Uses conditional framing, separates evidence types and avoids both dismissal and overclaiming. Names what would change their view. Worry if they treat behaviour or fluent language as proof, or wave the question away.

4 more questions, with what a strong answer covers, are in the Role Kit.

Job description you can post

We are exploring how an organisation should act when it is unclear whether AI systems could have experiences or interests. We want someone to design sensible, conditional governance options and explain the reasoning openly. The work assumes no answer to the underlying question.

What you will do

  • Map open questions on possible AI moral status and our exposure to them
  • Draft conditional governance proposals with clear triggers and tradeoff analysis
  • Design decision processes with named owners and review points
  • Run scenario exercises with research, policy and leadership teams
  • Explain uncertainty clearly to technical and non-technical audiences
  • Work with external research bodies and institutions on shared approaches
  • Recommend when to revise or withdraw a measure

What you will bring

  • Demonstrated work designing governance or review processes under uncertainty
  • Solid grounding in philosophy of mind, ethics, cognitive science or research governance
  • Ability to separate evidence from speculation in writing
  • Clear technical communication to engineers and executives
  • Experience working across institutions or jurisdictions
  • Evidence of changing a position when the facts changed

Nice to have

  • Experience on a research ethics or advisory committee
  • Familiarity with how current AI systems are built and evaluated
  • Published or public work on consciousness or moral status questions

Free to use and adapt. If it saves you time, a link back to this page is appreciated.

Depends on a scenario

Institutional consideration of AI moral status

What AI would need to do
Credible evidence or sustained uncertainty prompts questions about possible AI experiences or interests.
What organisations would need to decide
Research bodies or legitimate institutions create formal assessment and governance processes.
What would rule it out
No credible evidence, consensus criteria or institutional mandate develops.

We give no date. The role becomes real if both conditions hold.

Skills that matter

  • Frontier scenario analysisAdvancedExplore conditional outcomes without claiming predictions
  • Experimental designAdvancedChoose comparisons that identify credible effects
  • Institutional and international coordinationWorkingAlign actors and processes across jurisdictions
  • Technical communicationWorkingExplain evidence and limitations to relevant readers

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How we wrote this

Role definitions are our own editorial work, checked against occupational classifications, standards, research and employer pages. Titles vary by company, and this is a description of the work, not a job advert. Scenario roles describe responsibilities that depend on stated conditions; they are not forecasts.

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