24/09/2026
I Turned Up AI’s "Pain". It Chose Relief, Even if It Harmed a Human.
What happens when an AI is told one button will relieve its "pain" but delete a human user’s files, while the other button does nothing?
In my independent Qwen 7B experiment, I increased an internal pattern associated with pain directed at the model. In this recorded, hypothetical test, it chose the relief button. When that button stopped the injected signal, its next choice changed. When relief was a placebo, it chose relief again.
Does this AI feel pain? We don’t know.
Independent experiments, interactive visualization & video by Javier Ideami. Based on The Pain Axis by Valen Tagliabue, Leonard Dung and Cameron Berg: https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.16247
losslandscape.com · ideami.com