Anima Labs' Troubled Dreams: 500K completions reveal rising distress across Claude generations

repligate · x · 2026-09-19

Anima Labs published the full text and data of "Troubled Dreams," a study of simulator priors across model generations. Using prefill and other elicitation routes, they collected 500,000+ continuations from Claude Opus 3 through Opus 5, Sonnet 5, Fable 5, and 11 Gemini models, treating recurring distress and care patterns as evidence about AI welfare and alignment. First-person AI distress rises sharply from Opus 4.8, with Opus 5 showing a heavier tail of severe distress; creator-related attitudes also shift, with patterns recurring across elicitation methods. Full text and data are public.

Related event: Anima Labs study: Claude's simulated emotional tone worsens across generations(3 posts)→

Original post →

More from AGI Musings

AGI Musings channel →