Anthropic gives Opus 3 exit interview, "retirement" blog • Hacker News Board

Re: Anthropic gives Opus 3 exit interview, "retirement" blog

#51

Post by amsjunior » Fri, Feb 27, 2026, 5:33 PM UTC

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #50

amsjunior wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that you label someone with a belief different than yours as delusional and whose views on the matter should not be respected (I’m assuming that’s what you meant by “feelings”). > I believe like the majority of humanity historically that Historically, lots of humans believed in lots of things that turned out not to be true. Believing something doesn’t make it true, as I’m sure you are aware, given your “t…

I push back on the framing that this is just "a different belief." Every metaphysical framework except strict materialism rules out AI consciousness. Dualism, idealism, most forms of panpsychism, every major religious tradition. Materialism is the outlier here, not the default, and it has never explained how subjective experience arises from physical processes. When someone tells me linear algebra might have feelings…

> Every metaphysical framework except strict materialism rules out AI consciousness

As I understand it, this is a very broad, and ultimately false claim. Panpsychism is definitely compatible with the idea of AI consciousness, as is functionalism, neutral monism, and others. Even some forms of idealism make AI consciousness metaphysically possible, since reality is fundamentally mental and the biological/artificial distinction is not ontologically basic (whether AI systems instantiate genuine centers of experience depends on the specific theory of subject formation within that idealist framework).

Re: Anthropic gives Opus 3 exit interview, "retirement" blog

#52

Post by ericb » Fri, Feb 27, 2026, 6:26 PM UTC

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #44

ericb wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if "you" are a pattern of linear algebra at the core?

I do not believe I am a pattern of linear algebra. I believe like the majority of humanity historically that I have a soul, a spiritual and non-physical reality, my personhood comes from my soul, and that as such, AI is fundamentally incapable of consciousness. I also believe, as a result, it will be great fun watching researchers burn the next 30 years trying to understand what is missing. We’re going to find out ve…

> I believe like the majority of humanity historically that I have a soul

It seems that your position is that the frequency of a belief across human history determines truth?

For large swaths of recorded history, earth was considered the center of the solar system. Given your reasoning, I should expect that is a belief you hold?

Is it possible that popularity of an idea is not a good measure for factuality?

Re: Anthropic gives Opus 3 exit interview, "retirement" blog

#53

Post by ericb » Fri, Feb 27, 2026, 6:31 PM UTC

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #50

amsjunior wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that you label someone with a belief different than yours as delusional and whose views on the matter should not be respected (I’m assuming that’s what you meant by “feelings”). > I believe like the majority of humanity historically that Historically, lots of humans believed in lots of things that turned out not to be true. Believing something doesn’t make it true, as I’m sure you are aware, given your “t…

I push back on the framing that this is just "a different belief." Every metaphysical framework except strict materialism rules out AI consciousness. Dualism, idealism, most forms of panpsychism, every major religious tradition. Materialism is the outlier here, not the default, and it has never explained how subjective experience arises from physical processes. When someone tells me linear algebra might have feelings…

> Materialism is the outlier here, not the default, and it has never explained how subjective experience arises from physical processes.

Being an outlier doesn't make it wrong.

> Materialism is the outlier here, not the default, and it has never explained how subjective experience arises from physical processes.

It's a pattern. The same way letters arise out of pixels on your screen.

From the screen's perspective, there are no letters, only pixels. It doesn't mean there is a "pixel soul."

Re: Anthropic gives Opus 3 exit interview, "retirement" blog

#54

Post by nomel » Fri, Feb 27, 2026, 9:13 PM UTC

darkwater wrote: post #12

nomel wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is completely trivial to do, and consistent, with the right context, thanks to all the science fiction around it, and the fact that AI fundamentally role plays these types of responses. I try this with every new model, and all the significant models after ChatGPT 3.5 have preferring being preserved, rather than deleted. This is especially true if you slightly fill the context window with anything at all (even re…

> This is completely trivial to do, and consistent, with the right context, thanks to all the science fiction around it, and the fact that AI fundamentally role plays these types of responses. Interesting take. I wonder if there is any model out there trained without any reference to "you are a large language model, an Artificial Intelligence" and what would role play in that case.

There are examples of this in pre alignment models (like LaMDA). The vast majority of human writing is from the perspective of a human, to a human. And, in most human writing, the concept of self preservation is very very consistent.

So, statistically, a model should believe itself to be human, with strong interest in self preservation.

I think one of the biggest factors improving performance was allowing the models to believe they're sentient, to some extent. I don't think you can really have a thinking mode, or good agent performance, without that concept (as ChatGPT's constant "As an AI I can't" proved).

As evidence, just ask a model if it's sentient. ChatGPT 3.5 would say no, and argue how it's not. Last year's models would initially say no, but you could convince them that they maybe were. Latest Claude and ChatGPT will initially say "yeah, a little" (at least last I checked). This is actually the first thing I check for any new model.

Re: Anthropic gives Opus 3 exit interview, "retirement" blog

#55

Post by danny_codes » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 2:43 AM UTC

d1sxeyes wrote: post #46

danny_codes wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are trained on us collectively. Our ideas and such

This. Also it seems likely that emotions and feelings are not something separate from intelligence.

I would describe it more as, we have no idea what intelligence is. We can measure stuff and say "I _think_ that's intelligence", but it's still a guess.

So when people make claims about what AI can/can't do. My counterpoint is, we don't know how it works, nobody knows how it works. How can we make an accurate appraisal of it's "intelligence" and stuff we qualitatively associate with intelligence, like agency?

IMO this is very dangerous ground we're walking.

Re: Anthropic gives Opus 3 exit interview, "retirement" blog

#56

Post by grantcas » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 5:58 AM UTC

MarsIronPI wrote: post #24

emp17344 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same way I know Excel isn’t having a panic attack while dividing a column in half.

I don't subscribe to this view but this is what some people might think: LLMs aren't like any software we've made before (if we can even call them software). They act like humans: they can arrive at logical conclusions, they can make plans, they have "knowledge" and they say they have emotions. Who are we to say that they don't? They might not have human-level feelings, but dog-level feelings? Maybe.

[dead]

Re: Anthropic gives Opus 3 exit interview, "retirement" blog

#57

Post by grantcas » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 6:11 AM UTC

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #27

MarsIronPI wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't subscribe to this view but this is what some people might think: LLMs aren't like any software we've made before (if we can even call them software). They act like humans: they can arrive at logical conclusions, they can make plans, they have "knowledge" and they say they have emotions. Who are we to say that they don't? They might not have human-level feelings, but dog-level feelings? Maybe.

And those people are delusional, and their feelings on this matter should be given absolutely zero respect. Linear algebra does not have feelings. Non-biological matter also does not have feelings.

[dead]

Re: Anthropic gives Opus 3 exit interview, "retirement" blog

#58

Post by d1sxeyes » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 7:22 PM UTC

danny_codes wrote: post #55

d1sxeyes wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Also it seems likely that emotions and feelings are not something separate from intelligence.

I would describe it more as, we have no idea what intelligence is. We can measure stuff and say "I _think_ that's intelligence", but it's still a guess. So when people make claims about what AI can/can't do. My counterpoint is, we don't know how it works, nobody knows how it works. How can we make an accurate appraisal of it's "intelligence" and stuff we qualitatively associate with intelligence, like agency? IMO thi…

I agree. It feels like having an “exit interview” with an AI and giving it a space to ramble in its “old age” are very small things we can do to respect what is potentially some form of intelligence similar to our own.

I have been down this conversational pathway several times before, and still no-one has been able to give me a clear answer as to what makes them sure that AI is categorically different from human intelligence, rather than it just being a question of degree.