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.
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.