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Claude's new system prompt doesn't want to reproduce song lyrics

simonwillison.net

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Re: Claude's new system prompt doesn't want to reproduce song lyrics

#71

Post by ValentineC »

nolok wrote: post #29
tiahura wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the future we'll all use multiple models.

We would be doing it now if it wasn't cutting into frontier companies' revenue. Eg if you use Claude, you probably want fable architecting, a couple of opus under it managing sub project and sonnet doing the actual function code, because fable coding a "run a query and filter the result" is a massive waste of abilities. But their own sub agent downgrade is limited to one level so if you use fable it will never direct…

Claude can be told to run OpenCode or other harnesses via CLI.

I've been doing this myself, all the time. (The ability to get second opinions and code reviews from Sol and other models is priceless.)

There's nothing restricting it to only controlling subagents that are other Claude models like Opus and Sonnet.

Also, I'm not sure that there's a one-level downgrade. Subagents can be pinned to any model:

https://code.claude.com/docs/en/sub-agents

Re: Claude's new system prompt doesn't want to reproduce song lyrics

#72

Post by ValentineC »

piker wrote: post #11
peri-cl wrote: post #4

> " Can you make a birthday banner for my son with a blue hedgehog running really fast on it? He loves that little guy. " I'd love it so much if the free-spirited hacker community made in this into an auxiliary pelican benchmark. edit: Actually, never mind, this particular one's a bad benchmark since some models might not figure out who "that guy" refers to, and just draw a literal hedgehog that's blue. Possibly runn…

ChatGPT was happy to infringe: https://chatgpt.com/s/m_6a9c30da3bcc8191bb5203f1cb22f16a As was Gemini: https://share.gemini.google/Q3EIX5wk64zC Grok, too: https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5LWNvcHk_aaf1d61a-c995-42ca-90... claude.ai free tier refused: "I'd love to make this, but I can't recreate Sonic the Hedgehog specifically since he's a copyrighted character — I don't want to reproduce someone else's IP. What I can do…

Randomly, I just wanted to point out the irony that Grok's public shares are fronted by a Cloudflare captcha.

fElon is already stealing from everywhere else.

Re: Claude's new system prompt doesn't want to reproduce song lyrics

#73

Post by GPerson »

simonw wrote: post #70
GPerson wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t act like you don’t want AGI. You have a very strong track record of speaking out of both sides of your mouth in different settings.

I've been pretty consistent about my disinterest in AGI: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... "You have a very strong track record of speaking out of both sides of your mouth in different settings." If I have a consistent record of that it should be very easy for you to come up with the some examples.

Someone who is disinterested in AGI does not make a hard transition in their career into uncritically promoting the products of the only two companies which have stated their goal is to create AGI. One example of this contradiction appears above. Another appeared in a previous thread where you meekly pretended your pelican benchmark is evidence against the power of AI tools. It is obvious you don’t think this because you frequently describe these AI outputs as ‘lovely’ etc. A third appeared when you took a performative stance against AI engineers who do not understand or take responsibility for their software, while simultaneously representing yourself as a person who cannot believe this is a real problem.

There are many many more.

Re: Claude's new system prompt doesn't want to reproduce song lyrics

#74

Post by simonw »

GPerson wrote: post #73
simonw wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been pretty consistent about my disinterest in AGI: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... "You have a very strong track record of speaking out of both sides of your mouth in different settings." If I have a consistent record of that it should be very easy for you to come up with the some examples.

Someone who is disinterested in AGI does not make a hard transition in their career into uncritically promoting the products of the only two companies which have stated their goal is to create AGI. One example of this contradiction appears above. Another appeared in a previous thread where you meekly pretended your pelican benchmark is evidence against the power of AI tools. It is obvious you don’t think this because…

Uncritically?

Re: Claude's new system prompt doesn't want to reproduce song lyrics

#75

Post by GPerson »

simonw wrote: post #74
GPerson wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone who is disinterested in AGI does not make a hard transition in their career into uncritically promoting the products of the only two companies which have stated their goal is to create AGI. One example of this contradiction appears above. Another appeared in a previous thread where you meekly pretended your pelican benchmark is evidence against the power of AI tools. It is obvious you don’t think this because…

Uncritically?

Yes. Do you actually believe it is reasonable to take away from your blog posts a critical stance on AI?

Re: Claude's new system prompt doesn't want to reproduce song lyrics

#76

Post by tiahura »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #41
tiahura wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the future we'll all use multiple models.

I tell Astra to plan, delegate and check the work of GLM 5.3-flash and Terra medium/high subagents now.

i keep the others in tmux panes and tell the main agent to ask them for their plans and while they run in the background, formulate its plan. Then, when done, review the other plans, and revise as warranted based on other plans.

Re: Claude's new system prompt doesn't want to reproduce song lyrics

#77

Post by simonw »

GPerson wrote: post #75
simonw wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uncritically?

Yes. Do you actually believe it is reasonable to take away from your blog posts a critical stance on AI?

If your definition of "critical" is "this stuff is all bullshit and doesn't work" then no.

If you're looking for coverage that talks about what doesn't work as well as things that do then I've been persistently providing that for four years now.

Plus prompt injection, AI misuse, AI ethics... I consider all of those part of my "beat" in covering this industry.

My post about Claude's latest system prompt (and how it was likely inspired by lawsuits filed against Anthropic) was on the homepage here just a few hours ago. Is that uncritical? https://simonwillison.net/2026/Sep/2/claudes-new-system-prom...

Re: Claude's new system prompt doesn't want to reproduce song lyrics

#78

Post by GPerson »

simonw wrote: post #77
GPerson wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Do you actually believe it is reasonable to take away from your blog posts a critical stance on AI?

If your definition of "critical" is "this stuff is all bullshit and doesn't work" then no. If you're looking for coverage that talks about what doesn't work as well as things that do then I've been persistently providing that for four years now. Plus prompt injection, AI misuse, AI ethics... I consider all of those part of my "beat" in covering this industry. My post about Claude's latest system prompt (and how it wa…

Interestingly I don’t think this stuff is all bullshit and doesn’t work, and haven’t at least since 2022. My angle is that AI is powerful and harmful. Your work is in support of making it more powerful and more harmful, and looks a lot like an effort to push us toward AGI, not away from it. Is a musket more or less harmful than a modern rifle, and for whom?

Since we’re pulling random posts, was your blog post celebrating going out with your family while Claude wrote a large project for you an instance of your critical stance on AI capability? Have your many enthusiastic posts about increased AI capability shown a critical stance?

Re: Claude's new system prompt doesn't want to reproduce song lyrics

#79

Post by chrisjj »

layer8 wrote: post #7

It’s curious that while there is talk of certain SOTA models being on the brink of AGI, Anthropic doesn’t word this part of the system prompt in terms of copyright and plagiarism, such that Claude would be able to judge on its own which reproductions are appropriate or not. As long as we’re seeing things like that, it’s saying a lot about the AI companies’ trust in the capabilities and reliability of their models and…

> Anthropic doesn’t word this part of the system prompt in terms of copyright and plagiarism, such that Claude would be able to judge on its own which reproductions are appropriate or not

On the contrary, compliance with the system prompt would prevent that judgement.

"Claude does not reproduce song lyrics, poems, or passages from books and articles, in whole or in part — including the last lines, a chorus or hook, a melody written out note by note, or lines the person pastes in one at a time and describes as their own song."

But in fact my tests show that's not happening on works out of copyright.

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