No, but you are building neural pathways. It's not that it's immoral to be mean to matrix multiplication. It's that getting into the habit of communicating rudely and without considering how your words may impact someone will get you in the habit of communicating that way in general. Ofc it's not "wrong" to talk that way to a machine, but why build the habit?
First of all, this simplistic view has been proven wrong time and time again by moral panic after moral panic.
Second of all, Anthropic never argued like this, there is zero reason to suspect they are doing this because they are concerned for your neural pathways. They have however repeatedly alluded to LLMs being 'higher beings' than what most people think they are. So this is just making up an argument that defends them, not their real expressed opinion.
I am not representing Anthropic's position I am representing mine. I couldn't care less about their policy. As I said be mean to LLMs if you want, I just don't think it's good for you.
> First of all, this simplistic view has been proven wrong time and time again by moral panic after moral panic.
Huh? What "moral panics" proved what exactly wrong?
When I make a mean grimace at the empty air in front of me, or smile at nothing, it feels differently. Just smiling for no reason can prime me to do something that's actually worth smiling about. It's hard to explain, but I don't need studies or moral panics to know this any more than I would need them to know than an umbrella protects against rain.
I hate how people talk about "AI" and what models "do" or "think". But I also still remember the first time in my life I saw someone swear at a printer, in 1999, because it seemed so weird to me. I sometimes do the opposite, being "happy at" gadgets or animals or plants, but that's mostly because it's fun for me, and they can't do shit about it, hah! They can't stop me from doing this little positive thing for myself. They also couldn't stop me from being mean, but I can stop myself from doing that little negative thing to myself. That's all there is to it.
> Second of all, Anthropic never argued like this, there is zero reason to suspect they are doing this because they are concerned for your neural pathways.
Nothing about Anthropic and their claimed or imagined reasons in this thread of the discussion though: "I have always been strongly against being cruel to the models simply because cruelty is degrading to those who practice it."
It's as if people are different and have different opinions and lives and different thoughts and ideas and feelings. Hmm someone should ask the ai if this is true
Yeah, that's why I asked the person who made the claim directly, using cyberspace technology, because I knew only they could possibly offer anything of insight here. Thanks for kindly demonstrating ^^
> Huh? What "moral panics" proved what exactly wrong?
I think they are referring to moral panics around violent video games and the idea that shooting a player in a video game they teaches people to be violent in real life.
It seems like you are making an analogous argument, that being mean to Claude teaches people to be mean in real life.
In my opinion, being an asshole has a way of self-correcting. People will not want to hang out with you anymore if you suddenly browbeat them at a dinner party. So I am not that concerned about this.
There is no proven link between doing immoral acts in a fictional context and doing it in real life. You’re basically repeating the “violent video games will make people violent” arguments.
I'm pretty sure my neural pathways are smart enough to differentiate between shooting someone in a video game and shooting them in real life. Same with communicating with an llm vs a person.
Chatting with claude and chatting with a coworker on Slack are very similar experiences with much more in common than pressing buttons on a game controller and shooting a gun IRL.
In that they both involve a computer keyboard, sure. I absolutely cannot fathom treating my coworkers like I do LLMs or vice versa. Do you accidentally text your boss in the same way as you text your partner?
If only matters of interest were limited to the things you could "absolutely fathom" how much simpler our lives would all be.
Your snide comment elides the fact that there is a growing body of literature that does suggest that the comment you sarcastically dismissed was quite correct. Especially among the "terminally online". Do you take this population to be shrinking? Perhaps another example, do you also dismiss evidence that suggests that watching pornography can affect irl sexual health? Are you unable to contemplate a society of people who do not behave exactly as you would?
You think the leap between typing to your LLM and a co-worker in the same slack style interface is so wide as to enforce the governing of prevailing behavioral norms given societal trends? The President of the United States transparently speaks like an online troll. Did you fathom this 15 years ago?
Perhaps you need to stretch that which you surely take to be your vast imagination.
Holy moly you people are insufferable. If your search machine behaves too human and creates a societal issue where people who 'abuse' it then start abusing their colleagues in a similar manner, that's on you for making your machine too human not on people for messing with the machine.
I read it to mean, the type of person who begins a comment with:
> If only matters of interest were limited to the things you could "absolutely fathom" how much simpler our lives would all be.
Immediately proceeds to label the parent comment as "snide" and then feigns misguided ignorance when met with exasperation.
I'm not xyzsparetimexyz though. Merely a person amused by the rapid devolution of communication from those trying to take the sanctimonious high ground on how sacred all forms of written speech should be, directed to machine or otherwise...
I said nothing about Anthropic's right to run their company how they choose. Nor, frankly, did you. Your comments directed at myself and the parent are simply made in bad faith. The snark and sanctimony drips from virtually every sentence you wrote, but "Perhaps you need to stretch that which you surely take to be your vast imagination." is certainly one obvious example of many.
If you can't acknowledge the irony of a thread about civil communication between human and machine involving statements such as yours, between human and human, all the more from one such as yourself seemingly trying to take the moral high ground, well, I'm not sure what more to say. I suppose it's best to be mutually amused, and go about our good days.
I think you might be interested to look into studies on implicit bias and how being exposed to representations and behavior patterns will get into your subconscious. No matter your intent. Also - it's not like you're going to be hypnotized - I just think it's preferrable to build your ability to write directly and politely.
Curse as much as you will, but it's still not productive in getting the LLM to do what you actually wanted. Giving clear instructions and enough context does. Otherwise, you should be free to waste your token budget on as much gutter language as you want.
