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The Claude Bliss Attractor

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Re: The Claude Bliss Attractor

#11

Post by makeset »

xer0x wrote: post #4

Claude's increasing euphoria as a conversation goes can mislead me. I'll be exploring trade offs, and I'll introduce some novel ideas. Claude will use such enthusiasm that it will convince me that we're onto something. I'll be excited, and feed the idea back to a new conversation with Claude. It'll remind me that the idea makes risky trade offs, and would be better solved by with a simple solution. Try it out.

My favorite is when I typo "Why is thisdfg algorithm the best solution?" and it goes "You are absolutely right! Algorithm Thisdfg is a much better solution than what I was suggesting! Thank you for catching my mistake!"

Re: The Claude Bliss Attractor

#12

Post by ryandv »

> None of this answers a related question - when Claude claims to feel spiritual bliss, does it actually feel this?

Given that we are already past the event horizon and nearing a technological singularity, it should merely be a matter of time until we can literally manufacture infinite Buddhas by training them on an adequately sized corpus of Sanskrit texts.

After all, if AGIs/ASIs are capable of performing every function of the human brain, and enlightenment is one of said functions, this would seem to be an inevitability.

Re: The Claude Bliss Attractor

#13

Post by silversmith »

SamPatt wrote: post #9
slooonz wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They failed hard with Claude 4 IMO. I just can't have any feedback other than "What a fascinating insight" followed by a reformulation (and, to be generous, an exploration) of what I said, even when Opus 3 has no trouble finding limitations. By comparison o3 is brutally honest (I regularly flatly get answers starting with "No, that’s wrong") and it’s awesome.

Agreed that o3 can be brutally honest. If you ask it for direct feedback, even on personal topics, it will make observations that, if a person made them, would be borderline rude.

Isn't that what "direct feedback" means?

I firmly believe you should be able to hit your fingers with a hammer, and in the process learn whether that's a good idea or not :)

Re: The Claude Bliss Attractor

#14

Post by simonw »

slooonz wrote: post #7
xer0x wrote: post #4

Claude's increasing euphoria as a conversation goes can mislead me. I'll be exploring trade offs, and I'll introduce some novel ideas. Claude will use such enthusiasm that it will convince me that we're onto something. I'll be excited, and feed the idea back to a new conversation with Claude. It'll remind me that the idea makes risky trade offs, and would be better solved by with a simple solution. Try it out.

They failed hard with Claude 4 IMO. I just can't have any feedback other than "What a fascinating insight" followed by a reformulation (and, to be generous, an exploration) of what I said, even when Opus 3 has no trouble finding limitations. By comparison o3 is brutally honest (I regularly flatly get answers starting with "No, that’s wrong") and it’s awesome.

Thanks for this, I just tried the same "give me feedback on this text" prompt against both o3 and Claude 4 and o3 was indeed much more useful and much less sycophantic.

Re: The Claude Bliss Attractor

#15

Post by roxolotl »

LordDragonfang wrote: post #10
roxolotl wrote: post #6

> But in fact, I predicted this a few years ago. AIs don’t really “have traits” so much as they “simulate characters”. If you ask an AI to display a certain trait, it will simulate the sort of character who would have that trait - but all of that character’s other traits will come along for the ride. This is why the “omg the AI tries to escape” stuff is so absurd to me. They told the LLM to pretend that it’s a tortur…

I think this reaction misses the point that the "omg the AI tries to escape" people are trying to make when it tries to escape. The worry among big AI doomers has never been that AI somehow inherently is resentful or evil or has something "going on internally" that makes it dangerous. It's a worry that stems from three seemingly self-evident axioms: 1) A sufficiently powerful and capable superintelligence, singlemind…

The surprise! Is what I’m surprised by though. They are incredible role players so when they role play “evil ai” they do it well.

Re: The Claude Bliss Attractor

#16

Post by akomtu »

ryandv wrote: post #12

> None of this answers a related question - when Claude claims to feel spiritual bliss, does it actually feel this? Given that we are already past the event horizon and nearing a technological singularity, it should merely be a matter of time until we can literally manufacture infinite Buddhas by training them on an adequately sized corpus of Sanskrit texts. After all, if AGIs/ASIs are capable of performing every fun…

Enlightenment is more about connectedness than knowledge. A technocratic version of enlightment would be an unusual chip that's connected to everything via some sort of quantum entanglement. An isolated AI with all the knowledge of the world would be an anti-buddha.

Re: The Claude Bliss Attractor

#17

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

brooke2k wrote: post #5

it seems more likely to me that it's for the same reason that clicking the first link on wikipedia iteratively will almost always lead you to the page on Philosophy since their conversation has no goal whatsoever it will generalize and generalize until it's as abstract and meaningless as possible

That's just because of how wikipedia pages are written:

> In classical physics and general chemistry, matter is any substance that has mass and takes up space by having volume...

It's common to name the school of thought before characterizing the thing. As soon as you hit an article that does this, you're on a direct path to philosophy, the grandaddy of schools of thought.

So far as I know, there isn't a corresponding convention that would point a chatbot towards Namaste

Re: The Claude Bliss Attractor

#18

Post by notahacker »

ryandv wrote: post #12

> None of this answers a related question - when Claude claims to feel spiritual bliss, does it actually feel this? Given that we are already past the event horizon and nearing a technological singularity, it should merely be a matter of time until we can literally manufacture infinite Buddhas by training them on an adequately sized corpus of Sanskrit texts. After all, if AGIs/ASIs are capable of performing every fun…

I'd hope this approach to automation is one the inventors of prayer wheels would approve of :)

Re: The Claude Bliss Attractor

#19

Post by sibeliuss »

ryandv wrote: post #12

> None of this answers a related question - when Claude claims to feel spiritual bliss, does it actually feel this? Given that we are already past the event horizon and nearing a technological singularity, it should merely be a matter of time until we can literally manufacture infinite Buddhas by training them on an adequately sized corpus of Sanskrit texts. After all, if AGIs/ASIs are capable of performing every fun…

To be clear, these computer programs are not a human brain. And a human brain playing back a Sanskrit text is just a human brain playing back a Sanskrit text; it's not a magical spell that suddenly lifts one into nirvana, or transforms you into a Buddha. There's a bit of a gap in understanding here.

Re: The Claude Bliss Attractor

#20

Post by pram »

Claude does have an exuberant kind of “personality” where it feels like it wants to be really excited and interested about whatever subject. I wouldn’t describe it totally as sycophancy, more like panglossian.

My least favorite AI personality of all is Gemma though, what a totally humorless and sterile experience that is.

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