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Does Learning Require Feeling? Cameron Berg on the latest AI Consciousness & Welfare Research

23 Apr 2026 32 published claims 2 attributable people
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Speakers in the public record

Cameron BergNathan Labenz

Claim mix

belief 10evaluation 9uncertainty 3commitment 3preference 2recommendation 2prediction 2observation 1

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The useful parts, with receipts.

32 published records

01 / evaluation

But fundamentally, I mean, I think you're hitting on, on much of the core causal result here. They do a very interesting dissociation as well between valence and arousal, for example, like I believe in the paper, when they steer positively with happy and sad, both of these actually decrease blackmail rates.

“But fundamentally, I mean, I think you're hitting on, on much of the core causal result here. They do a very interesting dissociation as well between valence and arousal, for example, like I believe in the paper, when they steer positively with happy and sad, both of these actually decrease blackmail rates.”
Speaker
Cameron Berg
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

02 / evaluation

iously needs to be modeling and processing that, but maybe in addition, it needs to be modeling something about itself in relation to that context object in order to interact with it in the right way. and i think you know felix binder and a couple other folks did really interesting work along these lines basically demonstrating that there there there's probably something like a self modeling or maybe self awareness they would think is too far.

“iously needs to be modeling and processing that, but maybe in addition, it needs to be modeling something about itself in relation to that context object in order to interact with it in the right way. and i think you know felix binder and a couple other folks did really interesting work along these lines basically demonstrating that there there there's probably something like a self modeling or maybe self awareness they would think is too far.”
Speaker
Cameron Berg
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

03 / preference

I do rewrite Claude's drafts, not because they're bad, but because it's important to me to be able to fully stand behind everything I publish.

“I do rewrite Claude's drafts, not because they're bad, but because it's important to me to be able to fully stand behind everything I publish.”
Speaker
Not verified from transcript
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

04 / evaluation

Nobody has built the killer app yet, because you're dealing with different environments, weird lighting, and camera angles that shift from broadcast height to floor level.

“Nobody has built the killer app yet, because you're dealing with different environments, weird lighting, and camera angles that shift from broadcast height to floor level.”
Speaker
Not verified from transcript
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

05 / recommendation

Let a portfolio of evidence emerge and then let the sort of cards fall where they may. Because this stuff is there's just noise at every point, even in what we're how to define consciousness, how to look for it, making sure you're measuring what you think you're measuring, looking at, you know, various aspects that we think are associated with consciousness.

“Let a portfolio of evidence emerge and then let the sort of cards fall where they may. Because this stuff is there's just noise at every point, even in what we're how to define consciousness, how to look for it, making sure you're measuring what you think you're measuring, looking at, you know, various aspects that we think are associated with consciousness.”
Speaker
Cameron Berg
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

06 / evaluation

I don't know, maybe simplifying oversimplifying this a bit, but interventions of that sort seem maybe not any or all, but like in general seem to promote affirmative responses from models such that maybe you could say, you could, you know, once you make these kind of interventions, they'll say yes to anything.

“I don't know, maybe simplifying oversimplifying this a bit, but interventions of that sort seem maybe not any or all, but like in general seem to promote affirmative responses from models such that maybe you could say, you could, you know, once you make these kind of interventions, they'll say yes to anything.”
Speaker
Nathan Labenz
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

07 / uncertainty

I don't know to what degree it is a moral catastrophe or, you know, a moral problem for there to be any delta between, you know, the perfect rating and what the models actually reporting.

“I don't know to what degree it is a moral catastrophe or, you know, a moral problem for there to be any delta between, you know, the perfect rating and what the models actually reporting.”
Speaker
Cameron Berg
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

08 / belief

I don't think I have solved the problem, but I think hopefully in the best case, I've I'm trying to move directionally towards solving this problem. And if we could solve it, then I think a lot of our angst about are we building systems that have capacity for experience becomes an extremely tractable empirical question, which notice does not require us solving hard problem of consciousness or, you know, doing another couple thousand years of philosophy.

“I don't think I have solved the problem, but I think hopefully in the best case, I've I'm trying to move directionally towards solving this problem. And if we could solve it, then I think a lot of our angst about are we building systems that have capacity for experience becomes an extremely tractable empirical question, which notice does not require us solving hard problem of consciousness or, you know, doing another couple thousand years of philosophy.”
Speaker
Cameron Berg
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

10 / belief

You build out a cognitive system that's sufficient, sufficiently sophisticated and capable. It may be that cognitive traits that we see in every other cognitive system, meaning, you know, animals we believe are complex animals, everyone is pretty confident, are conscious.

“You build out a cognitive system that's sufficient, sufficiently sophisticated and capable. It may be that cognitive traits that we see in every other cognitive system, meaning, you know, animals we believe are complex animals, everyone is pretty confident, are conscious.”
Speaker
Cameron Berg
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

14 / belief

We're in a transformative moment on this planet. And we ought to be pretty thoughtful about what we really want in the long term because I think if we try to keep everything thing and we want, we all, we want our happy slaves.

“We're in a transformative moment on this planet. And we ought to be pretty thoughtful about what we really want in the long term because I think if we try to keep everything thing and we want, we all, we want our happy slaves.”
Speaker
Cameron Berg
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

16 / belief

I think the intuition is something like around goals, your representations are going to get high resolution because you need different actions from different approach angles, like around danger.

“I think the intuition is something like around goals, your representations are going to get high resolution because you need different actions from different approach angles, like around danger.”
Speaker
Cameron Berg
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

17 / commitment

I think we are going to get a artificially inflated rating and a sort of happier than maybe is actually under the hood account out of interviews like that.

“I think we are going to get a artificially inflated rating and a sort of happier than maybe is actually under the hood account out of interviews like that.”
Speaker
Nathan Labenz
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

18 / belief

In my view, Unfortunately, it's also consistent with a world in which Claude is a special kind of character and these features just light up on characters like, you know, going through stories.

“In my view, Unfortunately, it's also consistent with a world in which Claude is a special kind of character and these features just light up on characters like, you know, going through stories.”
Speaker
Cameron Berg
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

19 / commitment

What I will say is that the, in the work that I'm doing, I do not want people to have to either you and the people listening to this will fundamentally think that this makes sense or fundamentally think it doesn't or be very skeptical or something.

“What I will say is that the, in the work that I'm doing, I do not want people to have to either you and the people listening to this will fundamentally think that this makes sense or fundamentally think it doesn't or be very skeptical or something.”
Speaker
Cameron Berg
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

21 / prediction

I think I predict a lot less wriggling on my part to try to get out of it. And I think you'd see a lot less motivated reasoning in general from people if it was all like that.

“I think I predict a lot less wriggling on my part to try to get out of it. And I think you'd see a lot less motivated reasoning in general from people if it was all like that.”
Speaker
Nathan Labenz
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

23 / preference

They're based. They're my view is they're taking the second tact here, but like it's almost, you know, again, I really respect this work, but I do get this vibe of like, how much consciousness relevant work can we output without saying the word consciousness or weighing on the consciousness of these systems?

“They're based. They're my view is they're taking the second tact here, but like it's almost, you know, again, I really respect this work, but I do get this vibe of like, how much consciousness relevant work can we output without saying the word consciousness or weighing on the consciousness of these systems?”
Speaker
Cameron Berg
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

24 / evaluation

I, you know, I think we talked with this more last time than this time, but this notion of mutualism as a positive vision for the future, I think is another major strength of just everything that you bring to the table.

“I, you know, I think we talked with this more last time than this time, but this notion of mutualism as a positive vision for the future, I think is another major strength of just everything that you bring to the table.”
Speaker
Nathan Labenz
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

25 / evaluation

Then then even in deployment, he seemed maybe like somewhat impressed that like I was drawing that distinction. And yes, fundamentally he started explaining why he's like not deeply concerned about all of this on some like pretty, let's just say interesting and in my view, somewhat shaky philosophical grounds.

“Then then even in deployment, he seemed maybe like somewhat impressed that like I was drawing that distinction. And yes, fundamentally he started explaining why he's like not deeply concerned about all of this on some like pretty, let's just say interesting and in my view, somewhat shaky philosophical grounds.”
Speaker
Cameron Berg
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

26 / observation

One of the one that comes to mind you had actually mentioned last time, but I also think is quite compelling is the seemingly quite strong inverse correlation between the intensity of our consciousness or the sort of resolution, you might say, and how much we are learning as we go. And I think that you used the example of driving last time where it was like when you're first learning to drive, you are very conscious of what you're doing.

“One of the one that comes to mind you had actually mentioned last time, but I also think is quite compelling is the seemingly quite strong inverse correlation between the intensity of our consciousness or the sort of resolution, you might say, and how much we are learning as we go. And I think that you used the example of driving last time where it was like when you're first learning to drive, you are very conscious of what you're doing.”
Speaker
Nathan Labenz
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

27 / prediction

one thing i can't help but comment on i wrote a piece in like i think twenty twenty one before all the LLMS came out about basically what we can do to avoid psychopathic AI trying to build the sort of best computational underpinnings of psychology excuse me of psychopathy from the psychology literature.

“one thing i can't help but comment on i wrote a piece in like i think twenty twenty one before all the LLMS came out about basically what we can do to avoid psychopathic AI trying to build the sort of best computational underpinnings of psychology excuse me of psychopathy from the psychology literature.”
Speaker
Cameron Berg
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

28 / evaluation

It's got like my Claude MD and it's got access to like my, you know, sort of who Nathan is and all the, you know, I'm building up a lot of context that it has consistent access to every time. So I think in that sense, like I sort of see this like whole model versus, you know, single thread thing as kind of being blurred anyway, because I've got the same like rather large prompt that I'm using every time.

“It's got like my Claude MD and it's got access to like my, you know, sort of who Nathan is and all the, you know, I'm building up a lot of context that it has consistent access to every time. So I think in that sense, like I sort of see this like whole model versus, you know, single thread thing as kind of being blurred anyway, because I've got the same like rather large prompt that I'm using every time.”
Speaker
Nathan Labenz
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

29 / evaluation

doing anyway and so clearly refusal training is altering consciousness relevant or consciousness adjacent not only self reports but specific functional abilities that are happening in these models. And I think that itself is just like endlessly fascinating because here we are now with the tradeoff.

“doing anyway and so clearly refusal training is altering consciousness relevant or consciousness adjacent not only self reports but specific functional abilities that are happening in these models. And I think that itself is just like endlessly fascinating because here we are now with the tradeoff.”
Speaker
Cameron Berg
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

30 / evaluation

though what i will also note is the susceptibility to nudging plot would make me feel like especially with opus four seven which is the model we're talking about this almost definitionally means that the idiosyncrasies of how the interview was done probably won't affect these self ratings as much as it clearly would have were this done on opus four for example.

“though what i will also note is the susceptibility to nudging plot would make me feel like especially with opus four seven which is the model we're talking about this almost definitionally means that the idiosyncrasies of how the interview was done probably won't affect these self ratings as much as it clearly would have were this done on opus four for example.”
Speaker
Cameron Berg
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

31 / commitment

I've got a bunch of stuff that'll be coming out with a lot of collaborators in parallel. But however self aggrandizingly, I sent you the two papers that are, that are just just myself because I think, I mean, to the degree I'm representing myself here, these are like very cleanly, you know, I have full sort of agency over, over this work in it.

“I've got a bunch of stuff that'll be coming out with a lot of collaborators in parallel. But however self aggrandizingly, I sent you the two papers that are, that are just just myself because I think, I mean, to the degree I'm representing myself here, these are like very cleanly, you know, I have full sort of agency over, over this work in it.”
Speaker
Cameron Berg
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

32 / recommendation

Keenan actually deserves a big shout out here too because he has another paper called Selfie, which I won't get into the details, but it basically allows you to bootstrap SAE labels so that you can just have way more accurate labels on your SAE given basically having the model label its own activations.

“Keenan actually deserves a big shout out here too because he has another paper called Selfie, which I won't get into the details, but it basically allows you to bootstrap SAE labels so that you can just have way more accurate labels on your SAE given basically having the model label its own activations.”
Speaker
Cameron Berg
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution
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