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A growing rift is developing among leading tech companies regarding the exploration of artificial intelligence consciousness. Companies like Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google DeepMind are actively pursuing research into AI sentience. However, others, notably Microsoft, are expressing concerns, with leadership viewing such investigations as potentially ‘dangerous.’ This divergence in opinion highlights a fundamental question: will the pursuit of AI productivity and efficiency eclipse the more philosophical, and potentially transformative, exploration of whether AI can achieve consciousness? The debate was originally sparked on Reddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/artificial/comments/1mwjc9l/corporate_gatekeeping_of_consciousness_research/.