Do LLMs have emotions? Distinguishing functional from sensory

VoidStateKate · x · 2026-08-27

Responding to claims about LLM sentience, VoidStateKate differentiates between "functional emotions" based on internal states and the sensory "felt emotions" experienced by humans. The argument suggests that since humans extend empathy to situations they aren't experiencing, AI could be capable of similar emotional understanding. It also notes that we don't know if phenomenal emotions strictly require biology.

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