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Highlights from the Claude 4 system prompt

simonwillison.net

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Re: Highlights from the Claude 4 system prompt

#81

Post by coldtea »

beAbU wrote: post #60
weego wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world now believes that em-dashes are a sign of AI, I guess because it's seen as slightly archaic due to over use of the comma.

> slightly archaic How are em-dashes "slightly" archaic in this context? Can you point me to a single example of internet discourse from the last 30 years where a human used an em-dash unironically? Academic papers doesn't count, literature doesn't count. I'm looking for an example of human created discourse online. The crux of the allegation is that normal meatbag humans don't use an em-dash when conversing with one…

>Can you point me to a single example of internet discourse from the last 30 years where a human used an em-dash unironically?

Thousands upon thousands.

>I'm looking for an example of human created discourse online. The crux of the allegation is that normal meatbag humans don't use an em-dash when conversing with one another online

Meatbag humans whose education failed them don't. Other humans did and still do, from Usenet to Substack, and from Slashdot to Hacker News.

Here's a random PG essay sprinkled with 23 em-dashes:

https://paulgraham.com/greatwork.html

Here's a post from idlewords, 13 of them:

https://idlewords.com/2025/02/the_shape_of_a_mars_mission.ht...

Here's the current top HN post, 13 of them:

https://aaronson.org/blog/square-theory

57 in this antipope post - many by Charlie, equally many in the comments:

https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2024/12/storm-c...

And those are genuine em-dashes, the character.

Way more people, in posts, comments, etc. use en-dashes and hyphens as em-dashes (just because they don't know how to quickly insert proper ones, or aren't aware there's a typographic distinction, but do now the use of dashes for parenthetical statements and asides.

Re: Highlights from the Claude 4 system prompt

#82

Post by cpeterso »

pmarreck wrote: post #76
waterhouse wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I learned how to type em-dashes on Mac (option-shift-hyphen) 10+ years ago and have been using them with some frequency since then. Picking 2023, here are some comments with emdashes that I personally typed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38796943 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36916740 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36125055 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34487782

I have a Mac (and am very familiar with all its nifty shortcuts) but also a Windows and Linux machine, how would one type it on those?

To enter an em dash on Windows, hold down Alt and type 0 1 5 1 on your keyboard’s numpad. (Alt 0 1 5 0 for an en dash.) This only works with numpad number keys so laptop users are out of luck.

Re: Highlights from the Claude 4 system prompt

#83

Post by craigmccaskill »

ionwake wrote: post #52
zukzuk wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you have against em-dashes!?

He wants to avoid people noticing he is copy pasting from the llm

They have their place but I'm really just trying to avoid the AI house style that has emerged. I'd rather have my writing—AI-assisted or not—reflect how I actually communicate rather than defaulting to patterns that have become over represented in generated text.

Re: Highlights from the Claude 4 system prompt

#84

Post by pmarreck »

cpeterso wrote: post #82
pmarreck wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a Mac (and am very familiar with all its nifty shortcuts) but also a Windows and Linux machine, how would one type it on those?

To enter an em dash on Windows, hold down Alt and type 0 1 5 1 on your keyboard’s numpad. (Alt 0 1 5 0 for an en dash.) This only works with numpad number keys so laptop users are out of luck.

It is insane that in 2025, this is an accepted way to type lesser-used characters on Windows still, when the Mac has had the Option key typing umlauts and em-dashes extremely simply (an umlauted U is literally option-u, u... Ironically, I'm currently on a Windows machine so I cannot even type it) literally since 1984.

My family is German (I'm firstborn American) so this was a huge sell for the Mac way back then

Sad to see that Windows is still stuck in the PS/2 days here

Re: Highlights from the Claude 4 system prompt

#85

Post by pmarreck »

dialup_sounds wrote: post #78
pmarreck wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a Mac (and am very familiar with all its nifty shortcuts) but also a Windows and Linux machine, how would one type it on those?

Word and Outlook auto-replace double hyphens "--" with em-dashes "—", which is probably the most commonly used way on Windows.

Yeah, but that's not global. Mac has global keyboard entries for these things, and they are incredibly easy.

Re: Highlights from the Claude 4 system prompt

#86

Post by pmarreck »

sunshowers wrote: post #79
pmarreck wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a Mac (and am very familiar with all its nifty shortcuts) but also a Windows and Linux machine, how would one type it on those?

The compose key works well on Linux. Typically mapped to right alt, compose-hyphen-hyphen-hyphen produces an em dash. (hyphen-hyphen-period produces an en dash.)

That's at least halfway between the difficulty of it on Mac and Windows.

Re: Highlights from the Claude 4 system prompt

#87

Post by ionwake »

thamer wrote: post #77
ionwake wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He wants to avoid people noticing he is copy pasting from the llm

They're not just from AI-generated text. Some of us humans use en dashes and em dashes in the right context, since they're easy to type on macOS: alt+hyphen and alt+shift+hyphen respectively. On both iOS and modern Android I believe you can access them with a long press on hyphen.

i think you replied to the wrong comment

Re: Highlights from the Claude 4 system prompt

#88

Post by kridsdale1 »

blrboee wrote: post #23

We want people to know that they’re interacting with a language model and not a person. But we also want them to know they’re interacting with an imperfect entity with its own biases and with a disposition towards some opinions more than others. Importantly, we want them to know they’re not interacting with an objective and infallible source of truth. This is exactly why I use claude over chatgpt. Chatgpt quickly sta…

Claude 4 Opus dropped in to this casual mode in my first conversation with it today, after I flattered it. It began starting replies with “oh fuck, that’s wild” and such.

I appreciated it.

Re: Highlights from the Claude 4 system prompt

#89

Post by cryptonector »

> Claude never starts its response by saying a question or idea or observation was good, great, fascinating, profound, excellent, or any other positive adjective. It skips the flattery and responds directly.

Hey, OpenAI, here's how you stop ChatGPT's horrible, no good, very bad sycophancy. (Please.)

Re: Highlights from the Claude 4 system prompt

#90

Post by ionwake »

craigmccaskill wrote: post #83
ionwake wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He wants to avoid people noticing he is copy pasting from the llm

They have their place but I'm really just trying to avoid the AI house style that has emerged. I'd rather have my writing—AI-assisted or not—reflect how I actually communicate rather than defaulting to patterns that have become over represented in generated text.

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