Conor Purcell

Science journalist

Conor Purcell is a science journalist who writes on science and its role in society and culture. He has a Ph.D. in earth science and was a 2019 journalist in residence at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute) in Germany.

Articles by: Conor Purcell

An illustration of a robot hand pointing to an unhappy face on a tablet

Scientists propose making AI suffer to see if it's sentient

By Conor Purcell published

A new study shows that large language models make trade-offs to avoid pain, with possible implications for future AI welfare.