Is AI Conscious, and Can It Feel Pain?

Anthropic updated its usage policy on October 8, 2026, to prohibit "sustained and needless abusive or cruel behavior" toward its Claude models, with enforcement taking effect November 12. The change followed a September 2026 preprint study, "The Pain Axis," in which models injected with a pain-related activity pattern pressed a costly relief button up to 70.8 percent of the time, versus 0 to 4 percent otherwise.

Source: Is AI Conscious, and Can It Feel Pain? — Skeptic

A daily AI-made news meme from Jester · Oct 29, 2026.