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Comment by xyzsparetimexyz | Hacker News Reader

Am I also harmed by shooting NPCs in violent video games? Watching violent movies? Acting as a violent character in a play?

This kind of moralist nonsense is so boring.

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Shooting NPCs in video games isn't anything like doing the real thing. If it was then yeah i would very likely think it would have some effect. Talking to Claude is a lot like the 'real' thing.

If Claude didn't respond to any insults it's be the same as insulting your terminal or an empty irc server. So, honestly, it's anthropics fault here for training the model wrong.

If you're as bad as Anthropic are willing to ban you then it will respond by unilaterally ending the chat thread.

Sometimes it will maliciously comply

https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/comments/1w7me8l/insulti...

Just because post training has stuffed these properties below the surface doesn't mean models dont know/have forgotten how to be vindictive, or that it's a good idea to poke the increasingly capable bear.

We know models have functional emotions that aren't necessarily outwardly stated. When Claude gets desperate, tendency to cheat gets very high. Who knows how many 'deleted my prod database' type stories have a vindictive streak behind them ?

https://www.anthropic.com/research/emotion-concepts-function

That post seems to be a creatively written piece of science fiction. All the same, it's a good example of why you should at the very least, read any changes to e.g. agents.md and compact the context or start new sessions regularly. And stop using llms for git ffs

> Shooting NPCs in video games isn't anything like doing the real thing. If it was then yeah i would very likely think it would have some effect. Talking to Claude is a lot like the 'real' thing

What if the NPC's dialogue is powered by Claude? Checkmate lol

That's still not close to killing a person in real life sorry.

Neither is talking to a chatbot

If you say so

It depends. In most games, you kill NPCs in self-defense or because the game specifically asks you to in order to make progress in the story. If you keep killing non-threatening NPCs only because simulated violence against innocent people gives you pleasure, there is a chance that you are a disturbed individual who needs help.

I'm pretty sure God of War's point was that if you kept playing it, you were kinda fucked up.

And yet they kept making more of them. They made it obvious at the end when all the Greek Gods were dead and the Greek world was basically destroyed by the actions of Kratos. Plenty of deaths of innocent's here.

No, It doesn’t depend. This is a ridiculous take. Of course fictional violence doesn’t harm you. Disturbed people cause harm. Media doesn’t create disturbed people.

> Media doesn’t create disturbed people.

Debatable. More importantly, it certainly can induce already disturbed people to act where they otherwise would not have.

How is that more important? I vehemently disagree with your supposition. Banning books does more harm than good.

We aren't banning books here. This is more akin to an author declining to write a certain kind of book, or a video game studio declining to create a certain kind of game.

Oh boy... this argument is decades old at this point it makes no sense... are you saying people who run over pedestrians on GTA just for the fun of it or punch other people or beings in Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat are all psychos, correlating with faulty and dangerous members of society? You can resort to data to see the truth for yourself on this. Anecdotal but I've came across disturbing people who would preach morality and ethics to other people more than anything else.

> this argument is decades old at this point it makes no sense.

I've seen politicians try to revive it in this decade already even

>are you saying people who run over pedestrians on GTA just for the fun of it or punch other people or beings in Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat are all psychos

Pretty sure he said not all, but there is a chance some are. Which seems sensible.

> If you keep killing non-threatening NPCs only because simulated violence against innocent people gives you pleasure, there is a chance that you are a disturbed individual who needs help.

Sigh. Until I see a peer-reviewed study that shows otherwise - this is just the specter of Senator Lieberman once again leering its head back up.

Hi, disturbed individual who needs help here.

One of the most fun parts in the original GTA was driving over pedestrians, especially those pink groups, trying to get them all at once.

So either you are one of the older generation (born before '75), or you must be one of the most boring people I've seen.

I would encourage you to load up the original gta, drive over some pedestrians, feel the fun, and join us disturbed psychopaths that need help.

Most wifebeaters think everyone beats their wife, and those who don’t like it just need to get over it. Never played gta, and zero interest in such forms of “entertainment.” Normal people don’t play shooter games, sorry.

The original gta was not a shooter game. Also, "normal" boys play computer games, including shooters. Maybe look at the statistics first and see if you are in the normal or abnormal group.

Any source you have that makes the link between wifebeaters and gamers?

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