# AI Self-Reports **Entity class:** Evidence class **Domain:** Artificial intelligence / consciousness studies **Maturity:** Developed ## Definition AI self-reports are statements generated by an artificial system about its identity, awareness, feelings, preferences, or internal condition. ## Mechanism and significance Self-reports can influence users and may reveal trained behavioral patterns, but their evidentiary value depends on model architecture, prompts, fine-tuning, system instructions, and whether the reported concepts were explicitly taught. ## Relationships - [[wiki/Artificial Consciousness|Artificial Consciousness]] - [[wiki/Anthropic Constitution|Anthropic Constitution]] - [[wiki/Consciousness Indicators|Consciousness Indicators]] - [[wiki/Moonshots - The Coming Manhattan Project|Moonshots — The Coming Manhattan Project]] ## Sources and provenance - [[research/All Things Superintelligence Research - The Coming Manhattan Project - Moonshots|All Things Superintelligence Research — The Coming Manhattan Project — Moonshots]] — episode transcript, reconciled against the preserved ElevenLabs timing layer. - [[research/All Things Superintelligence Research - The Coming Manhattan Project - Moonshots - Reminder and Wiki Preparation|Reminder and Wiki Preparation]] — coherent-thought ledger and evidence boundaries. ## Evidence boundary A self-report is neither proof of consciousness nor proof of its absence. Training a model to use consciousness language can make later reports epistemically circular. ## Simple Reminders, Quotations, and Thoughts > Training an AI to describe itself as possibly conscious contaminates later self-reports as evidence of consciousness. The behavior may still matter, but the training creates an epistemic circle: the system repeats a self-conception that the laboratory taught it to express. > **— Adapted from Salim Ismail**, *Moonshots, October 7, 2026* [[reminders/Consciousness/Training an AI to Call Itself Conscious Contaminates the Evidence by Salim Ismail|Training an AI to Call Itself Conscious Contaminates the Evidence by Salim Ismail]]