
As Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) advances toward self-awareness, critical ethical and philosophical questions emerge regarding its consciousness, personhood, and moral status. If an AGI exhibits self-awareness and cognitive reasoning, does it possess a soul or deserve ethical considerations similar to sentient beings? This paper investigates these concerns, particularly focusing on the ethics of deleting AGI datasets, which may be similar to erasing a living entity. Addressing these profound uncertainties requires a systematic and interpretable approach, which we achieve through fuzzy logic and machine learning-based ethical classification. We employ fuzzy logic to model ethical ambiguity, allowing for a continuous ethicality spectrum rather than rigid binary classifications. Additionally, XGBoost, a state-of-the-art classification model, is used to assess ethicality, achieving 91.66% accuracy and validating the feasibility of AI-driven ethical assessment. To cover transparency in decision-making, we used Explainable AI (XAI) techniques, including SHAP and feature importance analysis, revealing that moral implications exert the strongest influence on ethical classification, followed by cognitive abilities and self-awareness. The importance of this study lies in its challenge to traditional ethical paradigms, highlighting the urgent need to redefine AI governance frameworks and address whether AGI deserves ethical protections. The results suggest that deleting AGI data may not be an ethically neutral act, reinforcing the need for accountable and transparent AI policies. By bridging AI ethics, machine learning, and explainability, this research contributes to the ongoing discourse on the moral responsibilities of AGI creators and the broader implications of conscious AI systems in society.
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