Anil Seth notes LLM 'pain representations' lack bodily language, unlike human pain

anilkseth · x · 2026-09-21

Parts 4-5 of Anil Seth's thread: 'pain' representations in LLMs differ interestingly from human pain descriptions—'bodily language is almost absent', possibly because pre-training has little use for accurate representations of physical pain. He also credits the authors for careful wording: they only discuss 'pain representations', avoid claiming subjective experience, and clarify in a footnote that their notion of 'pain' (unlike 'suffering') does not presuppose conscious experience.

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