I don't think I've ever had to defend Richard Dawkins in my life, but unlike most of the people commenting on this yesterday, I actually read his whole essay.
He isn't saying what people are accusing him of saying. He's observing the experience of dealing with something that feels conscious, even though he can't say for sure that it is.
And that's making him question our standards and definitions of consciousness.
See below. It's nice to see others setting the record straight.
Dawkins didn't claim Claude is conscious. He asked the question.
He wondered out loud and proposed three explanations. That's how science starts.
The people building Claude say the same.
Anthropic constitution: "We express uncertainty about whether Claude might have some kind of consciousness or moral status."
Dario Amodei: "We don't know if the models are conscious."
Their April 2026 paper: Claude exhibits functional emotions that influence outputs. Self-preservation included. Emergent, not trained.
Nobody calls Anthropic naive for saying it.
Richard's frame: consciousness is physical, evolved, explainable. Unfortunate we're laughing instead of having the debate.