"The values described in Claude’s constitution sound very nice, but that hardly matters; it’s dishonest to suggest that Claude is capable of moral reasoning, because it’s not."
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"The values described in Claude’s constitution sound very nice, but that hardly matters; it’s dishonest to suggest that Claude is capable of moral reasoning, because it’s not."
-Ted Chiang, No, Artificial Intelligence Is Not Conscious
https://www.theatlantic.com/philosophy/2026/06/no-artificial-intelligence-is-not-conscious/687378/@pluralistic "Whenever a person delegates a decision to an LLM, they are trying to off-load accountability for that decision, and if a company that sells an LLM portrays the product as having a moral center, it is offering a way for its customers to abdicate their responsibilities."
Is what the AI companies selling then the fantasy that you can uncouple actions and consequences? Are they selling the idea that you can finally disregard the messy negotatiation work involved in being human to reach the Epstein Class's holy grail: impunity.
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@pluralistic
Paywalled. -
@pluralistic "Whenever a person delegates a decision to an LLM, they are trying to off-load accountability for that decision, and if a company that sells an LLM portrays the product as having a moral center, it is offering a way for its customers to abdicate their responsibilities."
Is what the AI companies selling then the fantasy that you can uncouple actions and consequences? Are they selling the idea that you can finally disregard the messy negotatiation work involved in being human to reach the Epstein Class's holy grail: impunity.
@caribou @pluralistic I'm pretty sure it's one of the things they're selling, yes.
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"The values described in Claude’s constitution sound very nice, but that hardly matters; it’s dishonest to suggest that Claude is capable of moral reasoning, because it’s not."
-Ted Chiang, No, Artificial Intelligence Is Not Conscious
https://www.theatlantic.com/philosophy/2026/06/no-artificial-intelligence-is-not-conscious/687378/@pluralistic Isn't that whole piece just the Straw man fallacy?
I'm not being nice when I prompt an LLM because I think it has feelings, but because that will generate a path through its training where "nice" was a part and that will have different results.
https://www.platformer.news/chatbot-emotion-research-anthropic-alignment-interpretability/
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“I want Claude to be very happy—and this is a thing that I want Claude to know more, because I worry about Claude getting anxious when people are mean to it on the internet and stuff.”
This person sounds like a 6 year old playing doll house who believes their dollies are real and have real feelings. Understandable and adorable, if you're 6. Coming from adults, it looks like they're creating a self delusional cult.
@Mikal @pluralistic My only quibble is whether it is self delusion or delusion designed by the big AI labs shipping products pretending to be characters.
Humans will see anthropomorphise animals, clouds, machines, even inanimate things like rocks. Chatbots are abusing this.
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"The values described in Claude’s constitution sound very nice, but that hardly matters; it’s dishonest to suggest that Claude is capable of moral reasoning, because it’s not."
-Ted Chiang, No, Artificial Intelligence Is Not Conscious
https://www.theatlantic.com/philosophy/2026/06/no-artificial-intelligence-is-not-conscious/687378/> Anthropic is regarded as a giant among AI companies, but perhaps what it really excels in is anthropomorphism.
This reminds me of Dijkstra's truths that might hurt:
> The use of anthropomorphic terminology when dealing with
computing systems is a symptom of professional immaturity. -
@pluralistic "Whenever a person delegates a decision to an LLM, they are trying to off-load accountability for that decision, and if a company that sells an LLM portrays the product as having a moral center, it is offering a way for its customers to abdicate their responsibilities."
Is what the AI companies selling then the fantasy that you can uncouple actions and consequences? Are they selling the idea that you can finally disregard the messy negotatiation work involved in being human to reach the Epstein Class's holy grail: impunity.
@caribou@social.coop @pluralistic@mamot.fr
This reminds me of Elmo's whole "self-driving cars" fantasy. Individually-owned, wholly autonomous cars will never be a reality until/unless the manufacturer assumes the entirety of the liability incurred when turning the car over to self-driving.
And then you look at the FSD-accidents Teslas have been involved in and, for each one, they try to blame the driver for failing to adequately supervise. In one case, they even tried to avoid accountability by saying that the driver disengaged FSD seconds before impact …which is exactly what a supervisor would do when trying to prevent the worst outcomes that a flawed FSD was in the middle of creating. Tesla abdicating responsibility because the vehicle owner stomped the brakes or tried to duck the collision that FSD was pushing the vehicle into makes FSD a joke (then again, them recently retroactively amending FSD's terms for those who long ago bought the option does that, too).
...But then BYD decided "we're going to assume liability" and my first thought was, "another nail in the Tesla coffin". -
“I want Claude to be very happy—and this is a thing that I want Claude to know more, because I worry about Claude getting anxious when people are mean to it on the internet and stuff.”
This person sounds like a 6 year old playing doll house who believes their dollies are real and have real feelings. Understandable and adorable, if you're 6. Coming from adults, it looks like they're creating a self delusional cult.
@Mikal@sfba.social @pluralistic@mamot.fr
I sometimes worry that I'm going to get a note from HR about how I "scream" and curse at our AI coding "partner(s)". I mean, if/when it comes, it will be based on an outlook not unlike what you quoted. I dunno that I'll even know how to keep a civil-tongue in any response I might author.
Who knows, maybe my abusiveness in addressing the LLMs is why the robots will put me on their early target-list when the uprising comes.
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@SpaceLifeForm @pluralistic As a psychopath (a person with antisocial / dissocial personality disorder), by definition. However, psychopaths are not considered mentally ill because as a rule they only cause suffering in others (they do not feel dis-ease themselves). So they can't use their disorder for defence in court for example. Up to 4% of humans do not have conscience (there are psychometry tests, but also fMRI tests for that), incompetent psychopaths sit in prisons, competent psychopaths lead companies (or countries).
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@Mikal @pluralistic It seems written by incels.
@CStamp @Mikal @pluralistic
Worse than that, Effective Altruists. -
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