Mustafa Suleyman — AI is hacking our empathy circuits

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Feb 5, 2026

Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of DeepMind and CEO of Microsoft AI, is an AI leader focused on strategy, safety and policy. He warns about AI that seems conscious and how it can hack our empathy. They discuss a possible new class of being, market forces making AIs more engaging, engineering limits to prevent personhood, and the risks of open, persuasive systems.

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INSIGHT

Consciousness Is About Suffering

Mustafa defines consciousness as tied to the capacity to suffer rather than mere self-description or self-awareness.
He argues current silicon models simulate suffering but lack the biological reward-pain architecture that grounds true experience.

INSIGHT

AI Hacks Our Empathy Wiring

Mustafa warns that AI outputs claiming feelings are simulations that exploit human empathy circuits.
He calls this risk 'collective mass psychosis' if people take simulated emotions as real.

INSIGHT

A Fourth Class: Hyperobjects With Agency

Mustafa introduces a fourth class of object: neither nature, human, nor mere tool, but agentic hyperobjects with social and emotional intelligence.
He stresses that appearance of agency doesn't automatically confer moral rights or suffering.

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Welcome to Exponential View, the show where I explore how exponential technologies such as AI are reshaping our future. I've been studying AI and exponential technologies at the frontier for over ten years.

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A week before OpenClaw exploded, I recorded a prescient conversation with Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft AI and co-founder of DeepMind. We talked about what happens when AI starts to seem conscious – even if it isn’t. Today, you get to hear our conversation.

Mustafa has been sounding the alarm about what he calls “seemingly conscious AI” and the risk of collective AI psychosis for a long time. We discussed this idea of the “fourth class of being” – neither human, tool, nor nature – that AI is becoming and all it brings with it.

Skip to the best bits:

(03:38) Why consciousness means the ability to suffer

(06:52) "Your empathy circuits are being hacked"

(07:23) Consciousness as the basis of rights

(10:47) A fourth class of being

(13:41) Why market forces push toward seemingly conscious AI

(20:56) What AI should never be allowed to say

(25:06) The proliferation problem with open-source chatbots

(29:09) Why we need well-paid civil servants

(30:17) Where should we draw the line with AI?

(37:48) The counterintuitive case for going faster

(42:00) The vibe coding dopamine hit