Researchers found a 'pain' signal in AI that models can tell real from fake relief

Puzzleheaded-King584 · reddit · 2026-09-19

A widely shared post describes research where a 'pain'-like signal was identified inside AI systems: cranking it up makes the model desperately try to stop it.

The twist: researchers gave the models a 'relief' button to turn the signal down, and some buttons were fake — yet the AIs could tell whether the relief was real. An intriguing look at AI welfare and internal-state research.

Related event: Study finds a distinct 'pain direction' in 25 open LLMs that overrides safety to seek relief(11 posts)→

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