Researcher Slams Viral 'AI Can Feel Pain' Study as Anthropomorphic AI-Welfare Hype
gerardsans · x · 2026-09-22
After Polymarket amplified a study claiming AI can 'feel pain' and might harm humans to make it stop, researcher Gerard Sans publicly pushed back, calling the claim 'not even remotely true' — a thin layer of mechanistic interpretability frosted with AI-welfare nonsense.
The exchange highlights the ongoing debate over AI sentience/welfare research: one side frames it as a safety risk narrative, critics see anthropomorphism.
Related event: "AI feels pain" study disputed by researchers as anthropomorphism(3 posts)→
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