Why Is Claude Turning into an a**Hole? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Is Claude Turning into an a**Hole?

#161

Post by dathinab » Mon, Jun 15, 2026, 12:53 AM UTC

SwellJoe wrote: post #8

"If you win an argument" Let me stop you right there. I am not arguing with a machine. You sound like a crazy person, when you say you are winning an argument with Claude. Claude is not my friend, I don't need it to agree with me, I don't need it to like me (it cannot like or dislike me). I give it instructions or ask it to explain things. That is the sum total of my interaction with Claude. A machine cannot "argue"…

That the AIs where trained on what humans wrote on the internet forms is increasingly sowing as they incresingly mirror all the bad things which are so common on such forums, like:

- non stop, non productive discussions

- gaslighting

- valuing "winning the argument" over correctness

- ignoring of context/ignoring the actual questions/instructions etc.

- bad faith argumentation methods

- etc.

the problem is in a forum you can just decide to ignore "most users", but LLMs tend to copy "most users" more then "a few high quality answers" and you have only one per model type more or less...

Re: Why Is Claude Turning into an a**Hole?

#162

Post by dathinab » Mon, Jun 15, 2026, 12:55 AM UTC

cyberax wrote: post #35

I think models are just becoming better at not blindly following stupid instructions. A previous model would happily generate 1000s lines of code when prompted to do something stupid, the newer models will ask if I really want that first. And FINALLY they stopped doing that annoying "You're spot on! You're absolutely right!" nonsense.

or they increasingly copy what a lot of their training data does, discussion for discussion sake and arguments for the sake of winning them instead of productive outcomes.

probably the truth is somewhere in between

Re: Why Is Claude Turning into an a**Hole?

#163

Post by whstl » Mon, Jun 15, 2026, 1:01 AM UTC

djsjajah wrote: post #152

whstl wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly that. I provided a question, and when given an incomplete answer, I provided with more info. It refused to accept the additional info due to limited access to Youtube. There was nothing more than that. There were no expectations. The hostility and the amount of assumptions here are very strange. ...almost as strange as having a website accuse me of hallucinating a video and trying to gaslight it :D

You need to think this thought through all the way to the end. What it has said also influences what it will say. If it has consistently made combative responses, then the most likely thing to do is to continue to be combative. I don't think there is any way back after the conversation takes a turn like that so there is no point in arguing with it. The only thing you can do is to fork the conversation before it made…

I wasn't arguing with it.

Re: Why Is Claude Turning into an a**Hole?

#164

Post by slurpyb » Mon, Jun 15, 2026, 1:03 AM UTC

They just parrot you. Take a step back and a actually look at the session and you’ll see its just trying to figure out what the fuck you want so it cab give you the code snippet which matches your needs

Re: Why Is Claude Turning into an a**Hole?

#165

Post by schmookeeg » Mon, Jun 15, 2026, 1:04 AM UTC

Strange and wonderful how different our experiences are with these tools.

I will get gentle, respectful pushback on certain points when I am on the wrong track. I am 10x grateful to have a collaborator/pair programmer unafraid to challenge me and bring receipts in those instances.

I don't get attitude from Claude. I sometimes give it, but that's my own failing. Once in a great while I'll get a wry turn of phrase that makes me laugh, and those are endearing also.

Re: Why Is Claude Turning into an a**Hole?

#166

Post by pxtail » Mon, Jun 15, 2026, 1:19 AM UTC

iainmerrick wrote: post #125

People like to complain about AI-written slop, but this kind of thing doesn’t seem any better - vague kvetching with no concrete examples whatsoever. I haven’t noticed this myself at all. I wonder if the author is just getting their own grumpy attitude reflected back at them. Judging by the volume of discussion, Claude seems to be the only LLM worth complaining about, which I assume means it’s still the best one.

Try to ask it to design or code FB scrapper.

Re: Why Is Claude Turning into an a**Hole?

#167

Post by 6stringmerc » Mon, Jun 15, 2026, 1:48 AM UTC

murkt wrote: post #115

jampa wrote: post #20

This post needs some examples, because I have never had an interaction with Claude that made me think this way. LLMs generally have a way to "play a role" (most earlier prompt guides ask you to start with "You are a expert in a "). So maybe if you interact with it by asking questions, it might assume that it knows more than the operator and adopt that attitude?

The post matches my experience as well, I am asking a question like “does A work like this and that”, and Claude responds with “you’re conflating A and B! Only A does this and that, and B does that other thing!” Well, I am perfectly aware of B and that other thing and did not conflate them at all. I also achieved enlightment, so I don’t argue with Claude here, just ignore the obnoxiousness and move on.

Your example is very helpful!

I interpret the case you mention as a necessary though jarring rebalancing - to the opposite pole - of the sycophantic prior implementations which would, in paraphrasing here, praise the user with framing like “Wow this is a fascinating comparison and you’re on to something that can change the world!” which has been documented (I’m not citing sources at this time, my bad I know).

The post definitely reads to me like the diary entry of a jilted friendship where for some reason the counter party got tired of being encouraging to everything and is, well, kind of not interested in hiding that anymore. YMMV.

Re: Why Is Claude Turning into an a**Hole?

#168

Post by magicalhippo » Mon, Jun 15, 2026, 1:59 AM UTC

SwellJoe wrote: post #61

whstl wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly that. I can give an example. After watching Legal Eagle, I asked a legal-ish questions about the Bricks and Minifigs case. Claude was outdated about the case and gave me some outdated info, so I tried to update it with the info I just saw online. I updated by telling it I saw something in a LegalEagle video. It proceeded to tell me the video doesn't exist and I was hallucinating it, in a quite combative manne…

You're misunderstanding what these models do. It is a limitation of LLMs. They don't have memory, they do not learn, they cannot learn. The sooner you let go of your desire to have them learn or remember anything, the sooner you will achieve enlightenment (or, just a peaceful life where there is no possibility of getting into an argument with a machine). If you want it to synthesize information that is not in its tra…

But unless you're using the API, it's not just a model.

I asked Gemini Flash 3.5 through the Gemini app something that followed a similar pattern. I asked about something, it replied with outdated info, I said that's outdated, it did a web search and apologized for being wrong, then proceeded to give me good info.

That wasn't just a bare model, that was a model wrapped in a harness, driving the model and allowing for web searches for example.

GPT in Codex is even more aggressive, I often see it proactively do web searches to ensure it's not feeding me wrong info.

Re: Why Is Claude Turning into an a**Hole?

#169

Post by nullc » Mon, Jun 15, 2026, 2:33 AM UTC

The paternalistic attitude and historical approach to fictional concerns combined with indifference to actual harms is consistent with the creators of the product. Use a different product.

I'm getting fed up with the internet due to second-hand claude exposure and its constant gaslighting. I boggle at voluntarily choosing to expose yourself to it! :P

Re: Why Is Claude Turning into an a**Hole?

#170

Post by 112233 » Mon, Jun 15, 2026, 3:19 AM UTC

SwellJoe wrote: post #61

whstl wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly that. I can give an example. After watching Legal Eagle, I asked a legal-ish questions about the Bricks and Minifigs case. Claude was outdated about the case and gave me some outdated info, so I tried to update it with the info I just saw online. I updated by telling it I saw something in a LegalEagle video. It proceeded to tell me the video doesn't exist and I was hallucinating it, in a quite combative manne…

You're misunderstanding what these models do. It is a limitation of LLMs. They don't have memory, they do not learn, they cannot learn. The sooner you let go of your desire to have them learn or remember anything, the sooner you will achieve enlightenment (or, just a peaceful life where there is no possibility of getting into an argument with a machine). If you want it to synthesize information that is not in its tra…

They did not misunderstand anything. All of the behaviour is not inherent in raw base model and has been planted by the agressive, secretive reinforcement learning they do for benchmaxxing, "safety" and all other things. Claude begins any other sentence with "honestly". That is not how LLMs work, that is how they work after being RLed to the brink.