I had the same reaction and figured it was just roleplaying. The paper does go into it and it’s a different vector between the “pain” when you tell it you are going to kill it and the vector when you tell it to roleplay as someone experiencing pain.

That being said, it’s just really simple math in the end and isn’t in anyways comparable to actual emotions.

I’m really interested in the same concept being used to detect confusion though, since it would be an easy way to detect hallucinations.