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Claude's new constitution

anthropic.com

371–380 of 743 posts

Re: Claude's new constitution

#371

The only thing that worries me is this snippet in the blog post: >This constitution is written for our mainline, general-access Claude models. We have some models built for specialized uses that don’t fully fit this constitution; as we continue to develop products for specialized use cases, we will continue to evaluate how to best ensure our models meet the core objectives outlined in this constitution. Which, when I…

Anthropic has already has lower guardrails for DoD usage: https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/680465/a... It's interesting to me that a company that claims to be all about the public good: - Sells LLMs for military usage + collaborates with Palantir - Releases by far the least useful research of all the major US and Chinese labs, minus vanity interp projects from their interns - Is the only major lab…

Do you think dod would use Anthropic even with lower guardrails?

How can I kill this terrorist in the middle on civilians with max 20% casualties?

If Claude will answer: “sorry can’t help with that “ won’t be useful, right?

Therefore the logic is they need to answer all the hard questions.

Therefore as I’ve been saying for many times already they are sketchy.

Re: Claude's new constitution

#372
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're looking at this exactly the right way.

do LLMs arrive at these replies organically? Is it baked into the corpus and naturally emerges? Or are these artifacts of the internal prompting of these companies?

Reinforcement learning.

People like being told they are right, and when a response contains that formulation, on average, given the choice, people will pick it more often than a response that doesn't, and the LLM will adapt.

Re: Claude's new constitution

#373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean yeah, they have some sort of deal with Palantir.

Exactly. Their "constitution" and morality statements mean nothing. https://investors.palantir.com/news-details/2024/Anthropic-a...

Morality for regular low paying users. Not for govs.

Re: Claude's new constitution

#374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not a standard, that's a case study. I believe it's wrong, but I bet I believe that for a different reason than you do.

What multiple times of wrong are there that apply to shooting babies in the head that lead you to believe you think it’s wrong for different a reason? Quentin Tarantino writes and produces fiction. No one really believes needlessly shooting people in the head is an inconvenience only because of the mess it makes in the back seat. Maybe you have a strong conviction that the baby deserved it. Some people genuinely are…

I believe in God, specifically the God who reveals himself in the Christian Bible. I believe that the most fundamental reason that shooting a baby in the head is wrong is because God created and loves that baby, so to harm it is to violate the will of the most fundamental principle in all reality, which is God himself. What he approves of is good and what he disapproves of is bad, and there is no higher authority to appeal to beyond that. He disapproves (pretty strongly, as it happens) of harming babies. Therefore, it's wrong for you, or me, or anyone at any time or place, from any culture, including cultures that may exist thousands or tens of thousands of years from now that neither of us know about, to do so.

Many people who believe shooting babies in the head is wrong would give a very different reason than I do. I would agree with them in this instance, but not in every instance. Because we would not share the same standard. Because a single case study, like the one you've proposed, is not a standard.

Re: Claude's new constitution

#375
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems a lot like PR. Much like their posts about "AI welfare" experts who have been hired to make sure their models welfare isn't harmed by abusive users. I think that, by doing this, they encourage people to anthropomorphize more than they already do and to view Anthropic as industry leaders in this general feel-good "responsibility" type of values.

Anthropic models are far and away safer than any other model. They are the only ones really taking AI safety seriously. Dismissing it as PR ignores their entire corpus of work in this area.

By what measure? What's "safe"?

Re: Claude's new constitution

#376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's probably because we have yet to discover any universal moral standards. When is it OK to rape and murder a 1 year old child? Congratulations. You just observed a universal moral standard in motion. Any argument other than "never" would be atrocious.

Since you said in another comment that the ten commandments would be a good starting point for moral absolutes, and that lying is sinful, I'm assuming you take your morals from God. I'd like to add that slavery seemed to be okay on Leviticus 25:44-46. Is the bible atrocious too, according to your own view?

Have you ever read any treatment of a subject, or any somewhat comprehensive text, or anything that at least tries to be, and not found anything you disagreed with, anything that was at least questionable.

Are you proposing we cancel the entire scientific endeavour because its practitioners are often wrong and not infrequently, and increasingly so, intentionally deceptive.

Should we burn libraries because they contain books you don’t like.

Re: Claude's new constitution

#377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slavery in the time of Leviticus was not always the chattel slavery most people think of from the 18th century. For fellow Israelites, it was typically a form of indentured servitude, often willingly entered into to pay off a debt. Just because something was reported to have happened in the Bible, doesn't always mean it condones it. I see you left off many of the newer passages about slavery that would refute your su…

> Slavery in the time of Leviticus was not always the chattel slavery most people think of from the 18th century. For fellow Israelites, it was typically a form of indentured servitude, often willingly entered into to pay off a debt. If you were an indentured slave and gave birth to children, those children were not indentured slaves, they were chattel slaves. Exodus 21:4: > If his master gives him a wife and she bea…

At least nowadays we have the upper moral hand because the debtors prison has become so large and comprehensive you think you’re not in it.

Re: Claude's new constitution

#378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slavery in the time of Leviticus was not always the chattel slavery most people think of from the 18th century. For fellow Israelites, it was typically a form of indentured servitude, often willingly entered into to pay off a debt. Just because something was reported to have happened in the Bible, doesn't always mean it condones it. I see you left off many of the newer passages about slavery that would refute your su…

So it was a different kind of slavery. Still, God seemed okay with the idea that humans could be bought and sold, and said the fellow humans would then become your property. I can't see how that isn't the bible allowing slavery. And if the newer passages disallows it, does that mean God's moral changed over time?

God has changed since Genesis.

Why haven’t we all?

Re: Claude's new constitution

#379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

This belief isnt novel, it just doesnt engage with Hume, who many take very seriously.

https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/14879

Richard Carrier takes an extremely similar position in total (ie: both in position towards "is ought" and biological grounding). It engages with Hume by providing a way to side step the problem.

Re: Claude's new constitution

#380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

You're making a lot of assertions here that are really easy to dismiss. > It tells us that (large-scale) existence is a requirement to have morality. That seems to rule out moral realism. > That implies that the highest good are those decisions that improve the long-term survival odds of a) humanity, and b) the biosphere. Woah, that's quite a jump. Why? > So yes, I think you can derive an ought from an is. But this b…

> (and others have too, I'm blanking on the name of the last person I saw do this).

Richard Carrier. This is the "Hypothetical imperative", which I think is traced to Kant originally.

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