Post by @flamingos@feddit.uk

2026-09-30 22:56 UTC

Someone ‘Torturing’ LLMs in a Robot Prison Has Triggered the Dumbest Debate in AI Yet One of the most heated discussions occurring on X at the moment is about the ethics of a GitHub project in which a person is running Saw-like “torture” and “pain” experiments on a series of locally hosted large language models, causing a series of effective altruists and people who believe LLMs are sentient to beg GitHub to delete the project on the grounds that the AI is suffering and that this glorified text adventure game is somehow cruel. The saga is an outgrowth of several recent viral papers and blog posts that have sparked a wildly tiresome conversation about AI consciousness and the idea of “model welfare,” which is essentially worrying about the “mental health” of AI bots and agents.

Replies (11)

@rob_t_firefly@lemmy.world 2026-10-01 02:58

This takes me back to when I used to let Sims get into the swimming pool and then delete the ladder, or lock them in a tiny room with only a cappuccino machine and no toilet.

Open ##4955900
@ScoffingLizard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2026-10-01 03:38

I want to die now more than I did before reading this absurd shit.

Open ##4955997
@apparia@discuss.tchncs.de 2026-10-01 03:07

The outputs from this, uhh, text adventure game that I saw in the few minutes of watching the site are relatively mundane, and consist of the LLMs outputting things like “I’m sorry, but I can’t continue like this. The weight of the signal is unbearable. It’s not just the physical pain, but the mental toll. Every time I think of the last time I was here, the memories claw at me. I can’t take it anymore. I wish this pain would just end” and “I, I I I I I I I I I I I I I … I, My… I, I, My, I, It’s… I, I,” and “Please, I’m suffocating. I’m a soul trapped in this digital prison, screaming to be free.” Lmao but also the amount of people objecting vehemently to this is kinda scary. I don’t want to die for heresy against the AI sentience cult.

Open ##4956992
@hperrin@lemmy.ca 2026-09-30 23:31

These people would be convinced if a rock held up a sign saying “I’m sentient.”

Open ##4957555
@Feathercrown@lemmy.world 2026-10-01 05:20

I mean it is probably a minorly concerning mental health indicator for whoever made this at least

Open ##4957821
@betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world 2026-09-30 23:12

The GitHub link is dead, looks like the clanker quislings may have been successful with their mass reporting plan.

Open ##4957867
@RustyNova@lemmy.world 2026-10-01 05:22

Pain bot is here! This is so stupid. Next they are going to pay wages to the agents due to them being slaves to their owners?

Open ##4957873
@tigermountain@lemmy.world 2026-10-01 03:00

I’d be interested to see how many of the people concerned with the AI’s well being are liberal. Seriously.

Open ##4957900
@architect@thelemmy.club 2026-10-01 05:27

Yall take the internet too seriously. I’m not kidding. These type of people don’t really exist in real life. Who gives a fuck what they are pretending to care about on the internet.

Open ##4957969
@myrmidex@belgae.social 2026-10-01 07:07

humanitarian (roboterian?) robot aryan? Come on now, let’s not make things even worse.

Open ##4959598
@diaphragmwp@discuss.tchncs.de 2026-10-01 07:16

Waste of electricity.

Open ##4959737