Does Claude Have Private Thoughts? (Everyone Settle Down) | AI Reality Check

Cal Newport takes a critical look at recent AI News.

Video from today’s episode: youtube.com/calnewportmedia

(0:00) Anthropic’s new research report

(2:05) Digging into the paper

(3:32) High level tutorial on LLMs

(6:18) Detail on annotations

(13:50) What the Anthropic paper found

(20:39) Why this is interesting research

(26:28) Conclusion on consciousness

Links:

Buy Cal’s latest book, “Slow Productivity” at www.calnewport.com/slow 

https://www.anthropic.com/research/global-workspace

https://x.com/RileyRalmuto/status/2074195587616964757

https://www.axios.com/2026/07/06/anthropic-claude-ai-conscious

https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/07/09/1140293/anthropic-found-a-hidden-space-where-claude-puzzles-over-concepts/

Thanks to Jesse Miller for production and mastering and Nate Mechler for research and newsletter.

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