Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Claude's new constitution

anthropic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 743 posts

Re: Claude's new constitution

#331

Post by pryce »

miki123211 wrote: post #318

I find it incredibly ironic that all of Anthropic's "hard constraints", the only things that Claude is not allowed to do under any circumstances, are basically "thou shalt not destroy the world", except the last one, "do not generate child sexual abuse material." To put it into perspective, according to this constitution, killing children is more morally acceptable[1] than generating a Harry Potter fanfiction involvi…

If instead of looking at it as an attempt to enshrine a viable, internally consistent ethical framework, we choose to look at it as a marketing document, seeming inconsistencies suddenly become immediately explicable:

1. "thou shalt not destroy the world" communicates that the product is powerful and thus desirable.

2. "do not generate CSAM" indicates a response to the widespread public notoriety around AI and CSAM generation, and an indication that observers of this document should feel reassured with the choice of this particular AI company rather than another.

Re: Claude's new constitution

#332

Post by tshaddox »

joshuamcginnis wrote: post #140

As someone who holds to moral absolutes grounded in objective truth, I find the updated Constitution concerning. > We generally favor cultivating good values and judgment over strict rules... By 'good values,' we don’t mean a fixed set of 'correct' values, but rather genuine care and ethical motivation combined with the practical wisdom to apply this skillfully in real situations. This rejects any fixed, universal mo…

> This rejects any fixed, universal moral standards in favor of fluid, human-defined "practical wisdom" and "ethical motivation."

Or, more charitably, it rejects the notion that our knowledge of any objective truth is ever perfect or complete.

Re: Claude's new constitution

#333

Post by colordrops »

spicyusername wrote: post #164
joshuamcginnis wrote: post #140

As someone who holds to moral absolutes grounded in objective truth, I find the updated Constitution concerning. > We generally favor cultivating good values and judgment over strict rules... By 'good values,' we don’t mean a fixed set of 'correct' values, but rather genuine care and ethical motivation combined with the practical wisdom to apply this skillfully in real situations. This rejects any fixed, universal mo…

objective truth moral absolutes I wish you much luck on linking those two. A well written book on such a topic would likely make you rich indeed. This rejects any fixed, universal moral standards That's probably because we have yet to discover any universal moral standards.

You can't "discover" universal moral standards any more than you can discover the "best color".

Re: Claude's new constitution

#334

Post by yunnpp »

joshuamcginnis wrote: post #256
yunnpp wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you lied, which means you either don't accept that lying is absolutely wrong, or you admit yourself to do wrong. Your last sentence is just a strawman that deflects the issue. What do you do with the case where you have a choice between a train staying on track and killing one person, or going off track and killing everybody else? Like others have said, you are oversimplifying things. It sounds like you just disco…

The problem is that if moral absolution doesn’t exist then it doesn’t matter what you do in the trolly situation since it’s all relative. You may as well do what you please since it’s all a matter of opinion anyway.

No, it's not black and white, that's the whole point. How would you answer to the case I outlined above, according to your rules? It's called a paradox for a reason. Plus, that there is no right answer in many situations does not preclude that an answer or some approximation of it should be sought, similarly to how the lack of proof of God's existence does not preclude one from believing and seeking understanding anyway. If you have read the Bible and derived hard and clear rules of what to do and not do in every situation, then I'm not sure what is it you understood.

To be clear, I am with you in believing that there is, indeed, an absolute right/wrong, and the examples you brought up are obviously wrong. But humans cannot absolutely determine right/wrong, as is exemplified by the many paradoxes, and again as it appears in Genesis. And that is precisely a sort of soft-proof of God: if we accept there is an absolute right/wrong, but unreachable from the human realm, then where does that absolute emanate from? I haven't worded that very well, but it's an argument you can find in literature.

And, to be clear, Claude is full of BS.

Re: Claude's new constitution

#335

Post by badlibrarian »

miki123211 wrote: post #318

I find it incredibly ironic that all of Anthropic's "hard constraints", the only things that Claude is not allowed to do under any circumstances, are basically "thou shalt not destroy the world", except the last one, "do not generate child sexual abuse material." To put it into perspective, according to this constitution, killing children is more morally acceptable[1] than generating a Harry Potter fanfiction involvi…

Copyright detection would kick in and prevent the Harry Potter example before the CSAM filters kicked in. Claude won't render fanfic of Porky Pig sodomizing Elmer Fudd either.

Re: Claude's new constitution

#336

Post by tshaddox »

simpaticoder wrote: post #196
spicyusername wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

objective truth moral absolutes I wish you much luck on linking those two. A well written book on such a topic would likely make you rich indeed. This rejects any fixed, universal moral standards That's probably because we have yet to discover any universal moral standards.

>we have yet to discover any universal moral standards. The universe does tell us something about morality. It tells us that (large-scale) existence is a requirement to have morality. That implies that the highest good are those decisions that improve the long-term survival odds of a) humanity, and b) the biosphere. I tend to think this implies we have an obligation to live sustainably on this world, protect it from…

It seems to me that objective moral truths would exist even if humans (and any other moral agents) went extinct, in the same way as basic objective physical truths.

Are you talking instead about the quest to discover moral truths, or perhaps ongoing moral acts by moral agents?

The quest to discover truths about physical reality also require humans or similar agents to exist, yet I wouldn’t conclude from that anything profound about humanity’s existence being relevant to the universe.

Re: Claude's new constitution

#337

Post by brokencode »

miki123211 wrote: post #318

I find it incredibly ironic that all of Anthropic's "hard constraints", the only things that Claude is not allowed to do under any circumstances, are basically "thou shalt not destroy the world", except the last one, "do not generate child sexual abuse material." To put it into perspective, according to this constitution, killing children is more morally acceptable[1] than generating a Harry Potter fanfiction involvi…

Yes, but when does Claude have the opportunity to kill children? Is it really something that happens? Where is the risk to Anthropic there?

On the other hand, no brand wants to be associated with CSAM. Even setting aside the morality and legality, it’s just bad business.

Re: Claude's new constitution

#338

Post by IgorPartola »

pineaux wrote: post #304
IgorPartola wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only people who have not seen the world believe humans are the same everywhere. We are in fact quite diverse. Hammurabi would have thought that a castless system is unethical and immoral. Ancient Greeks thought that platonic relationships were moral (look up the original meaning of this if you are unaware). Egyptians worshiped the Pharaoh as a god and thought it was immoral not to. Korea had a 3500 year history of sl…

I have in fact seen a lot of the world, so booyaka? Lived in multiple continents for multiple years. There is evidence for genetic moral foundations in humans. Adopted twin studies show 30-60% of variability in political preference is genetically attributable. Things like openness and a preference for pureness are the kind of vectors that were proposed. Most animals prefer not to hurt their own, prefer no incest etc.…

Yeah I mean there is no evidence that vampires or fairies or werewolves exist but I suppose they could.

When someone makes a claim of UNIVERSAL morality and OBJECTIVE truth, they cannot turn around and say that they are unable to ever prove that it exists, is universal, or is objective. That isn’t how that works. We are pre-wired to believe in higher powers is not the same as universal morality. It’s just a side effect of survival of our species. And high minded (sounding) rhetoric does not change this at all.

Re: Claude's new constitution

#339

Post by incompatible »

miki123211 wrote: post #318

I find it incredibly ironic that all of Anthropic's "hard constraints", the only things that Claude is not allowed to do under any circumstances, are basically "thou shalt not destroy the world", except the last one, "do not generate child sexual abuse material." To put it into perspective, according to this constitution, killing children is more morally acceptable[1] than generating a Harry Potter fanfiction involvi…

Fictional textual descriptions of 16-year-olds having sex are theoretically illegal where I live (a state of Australia.) Somehow, this hasn't led to the banning of works like Game of Thrones.

Re: Claude's new constitution

#340

Post by tired-turtle »

joshuamcginnis wrote: post #140

As someone who holds to moral absolutes grounded in objective truth, I find the updated Constitution concerning. > We generally favor cultivating good values and judgment over strict rules... By 'good values,' we don’t mean a fixed set of 'correct' values, but rather genuine care and ethical motivation combined with the practical wisdom to apply this skillfully in real situations. This rejects any fixed, universal mo…

Have you heard of the trolley problem?
Post reply on HN