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Claude's new constitution

anthropic.com

611–620 of 743 posts

Re: Claude's new constitution

#611
post #596

Yesterday I asked ChatGPT to riff on a humorous Pompeii graffiti. It said it couldn't do that because it violated the policy. But it was happy to tell me all sorts of extremely vulgar historical graffitis, or to translate my own attempts. What was illegal here, it seemed, was not the sexual content, but creativity in a sexual context, which I found very interesting. (I think this is designed to stop sexual roleplay.…

Oh good, maybe in the future I can get a job doing erotic roleplay for hire when my software dev job gets devoured

Re: Claude's new constitution

#612

"Constitution" "we express our uncertainty about whether Claude might have some kind of consciousness" "we care about Claude’s psychological security, sense of self, and wellbeing" Is this grandstanding for our benefit or do these people actually believe they're Gods over a new kind of entity?

You're either not an AI researcher or you're not paying attention if you think these questions aren't relevant.

Even a basic understanding of LLMs should convince anyone that LLM conciousness and well being are nonsensical ideas. And as for constitution, I mostly object to the use of the word rather than the concept of guidelines. Its an uncessarily grandiose word. And yes I'm aware that its been used in LLM research before.

Re: Claude's new constitution

#614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Claude won't render fanfic of Porky Pig sodomizing Elmer Fudd either. Bet?

This thread has it all: child pornography, copyright violation, and gambling. All we need is someone to vibecode a site that sells 3D printed graven images to complete the set.

Re: Claude's new constitution

#615

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…

>his rejects any fixed, universal moral standards in favor of fluid, human-defined "practical wisdom" and "ethical motivation." Without objective anchors, "good values" become whatever Anthropic's team (or future cultural pressures) deem them to be at any given time.

Who gets to decide the set of concrete anchors that get embedded in the AI? You trust Anthropic to do it? The US Government? The Median Voter in Ohio?

Re: Claude's new constitution

#616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have a choice. 1. Demonstrate to me that anyone has ever found themselves in one of these hypothetical rape a baby or kill a million people, or it’s variants, scenarios. And that anyone who has found themselves in such a situation, went on to live their life and every day wake up and proudly proclaim “raping a baby was the right thing to do” or that killing a million was the correct choice. If you did one or the…

It is exactly that: a hypothetical. The point is not whether anyone has ever faced this scenario, but whether OP’s assertion is conditional or absolute. Hypotheticals are tools for testing claims, not predictions about what will occur. People routinely make gray-area decisions, choosing between bad and worse outcomes. Discomfort, regret, or moral revulsion toward a choice is beside the point. Those reactions describe…

I do realize now I accidentally shifted the language from "universal" morals to "objective" morals. If a moral principle is claimed to be universal, it must, by definition, be applicable to all possible scenarios.

An objective moral isn't invalidated by an immoral choice still being the most correct choice in a set, but a universal moral is invalidated by only a single exception.

I suppose it's up to you if you were agreeing with the OP on the choice of "universal".

Re: Claude's new constitution

#617
post #435

This "constitution" is pretty messed up. > Claude is central to our commercial success, which is central to our mission. But can an organisation remain a gatekeeper of safety, moral steward of humanity’s future and the decider of what risks are acceptable while depending on acceleration for survival? It seems the market is ultimately deciding what risks are acceptable for humanity here

> It seems the market is ultimately deciding what risks are acceptable for humanity here

no shit

Re: Claude's new constitution

#618

"Constitution" "we express our uncertainty about whether Claude might have some kind of consciousness" "we care about Claude’s psychological security, sense of self, and wellbeing" Is this grandstanding for our benefit or do these people actually believe they're Gods over a new kind of entity?

Well it's definitely a new kind of entity created by Anthropic. Whether it's worth worrying about LLMs wellbeing is debatable. A subtle reason to maybe worry about it is thinking tends to get generalised. It's easier to say care about things in general than care about things with biological neurons but not artificial ones.

Re: Claude's new constitution

#620
post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This basically Searle's Chinese Room argument. It's got a respectable history (... Searle's personal ethics aside) but it's not something that has produced any kind of consensus among philosophers. Note that it would apply to any AI instantiated as a Turing machine and to a simulation of human brain at an arbitrary level of detail as well. There is a section on the Chinese Room argument in the book. (I personally am…

That philosophers still debate it isn’t a counterargument. Philosophers still debate lots of things. Where’s the flaw in the actual reasoning? The computation is substrate-independent. Running it slower on paper doesn’t change what’s being computed. If there’s no experiencer when you do arithmetic by hand, parallelizing it on silicon doesn’t summon one.

Exactly what part of your brain can you point to and say, "This is it. This understands Chinese" ? Your brain is every bit a Chinese Room as a Large Language Model. That's the flaw.

And unless you believe in a metaphysical reality to the body, then your point about substrate independence cuts for the brain as well.

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