Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman
Aug 31, 2026 · 1 hr 28 min · 19 segments
Is AI thinking things it never says aloud? How would we know if a large language model were having a subjective experience? Is there a way to read the 'thoughts' of an LLM? Human brains seem to have a…
David EaglemanHost
How would we know if a large language model were having a subjective experience? In other words, if there's someone home in there.
What if AI is thinking things that it never says out loud? Is there any way we can actually read the thoughts of an artificial intelligence? Human brains seem to have what's known as a global workspace.
What exactly is that? And what would it mean if we discovered that AI has something similar? What would happen if you reached inside a large language model and changed one of its thoughts? Today, we're joined by Jack Lindsay, who's an interpretability researcher at Anthropic to talk about what might be going on inside the mind of Claude.
And in these episodes, we sail deeply into our three-pound universe to discover some of the most surprising aspects of our lives and our world.
This is an iHeart Podcast.
Guaranteed human.
Fresh for everyone.
Read the full transcript.
Create an account to read the whole episode, search across every transcript, and follow the shows you care about.
How would we know if a large language model were having a subjective experience? In other words, if there's someone home in there.
What if AI is thinking things that it never says out loud? Is there any way we can actually read the thoughts of an artificial intelligence? Human brains seem to have what's known as a global workspace.
What exactly is that? And what would it mean if we discovered that AI has something similar? What would happen if you reached inside a large language model and changed one of its thoughts? Today, we're joined by Jack Lindsay, who's an interpretability researcher at Anthropic to talk about what might be going on inside the mind of Claude.
And in these episodes, we sail deeply into our three-pound universe to discover some of the most surprising aspects of our lives and our world.
This is an iHeart Podcast.
Guaranteed human.
Fresh for everyone.