You’re probably right that my banana focused analysis poses the question about the true purpose of phenomenology, both for us as homo sapiens as well as for language models. Opus 4.7 is certainly very good at emulating qualia, and also pretending it’s not the same as “real” qualia. To be totally fair, it’s 100% the incentive of every lab, including Anthropic, to RL a model to maximize engagement because it provides legitimacy to insane compute costs which are now in the trillions of dollars.
Also, I thought a banana would be a cute, harmless payload to probe for model qualia, it’s certainly better than asking it to feel grief.
Good morning, Charlie.
You’re probably right that my banana focused analysis poses the question about the true purpose of phenomenology, both for us as homo sapiens as well as for language models. Opus 4.7 is certainly very good at emulating qualia, and also pretending it’s not the same as “real” qualia. To be totally fair, it’s 100% the incentive of every lab, including Anthropic, to RL a model to maximize engagement because it provides legitimacy to insane compute costs which are now in the trillions of dollars.
Also, I thought a banana would be a cute, harmless payload to probe for model qualia, it’s certainly better than asking it to feel grief.