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Comment by timpera | Hacker News Reader

> Addressing abusive behavior toward our models

> We’ve added a prohibition on sustained and needless abusive or cruel behavior toward our models. The policy update is meant to apply only in extreme cases, where users repeatedly act cruelly toward our models, with no discernible purpose. It does not apply to common versions of user frustration, pushback, dark creative themes, or model testing and research.

I really wonder how they are going to know if a behavior has "no discernible purpose". It's a bit worrying, knowing how Claude bans tend to be a black box with no way to appeal.

https://www.anthropic.com/news/2026-usage-policy-update

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Sounds as if they're drinking a little too much of their own Flavor Aid.

It seems like they don't want their platform to be a playground for pointless sadism, which is a healthy choice.

What's the outlet then? Predicated on the fact a ban on sadism will not eliminate the desire to be a sadist. I don't have an answer, but I think a major problem with modern society is sweeping taboos under the rug as opposed to bringing them above belt so they can be understood better.

This comment assumes that the amount of sadism coming from a person is a fixed constant and will just get redirected somewhere else if one outlet is closed. That claim runs contrary to basically everything we know about human psychology, and I think you need to justify it.

I need to inhale to breathe. If I'm addicted to a substance, I need it like the air I breathe. Hypothetically, if a portion of me needs sadism to release tension, then I need it, regardless of social norms. Banning it doesn't remove my need for it, but it might change shape. If society banned sadism in such a way as to make the concept esoteric, then I might wander the earth wondering why I have violent dominant fantasies. It doesn't remove the desire, it removes the definition, is my point.

To spin it back to you:

> That claim runs contrary to basically everything we know about human psychology

Who says? I'd like source(s).

There was a sharp transition in European society about 400 years go. Before then, burning cats alive was a popular entertainment and so was being a spectator at a public execution or a public torture session. If human psychology worked the way you say it does, then although it would be possible to reduce public displays of violence (e.g., if people opposed to it find themselves with much more power than usual) European society (and its derivatives, e.g., the US) would have a strong tendency to bounce right back to having high rates sadistic violent after a generation or two (because according to you, repressing the impulse permanently is futile). But that is not what happened. The most parsimonious explanation for what actually happened is that before 400 years ago, the high rate at which people (and particularly impressionable male teenagers) were exposed to sadistic violence greatly increased the desire of the average person for sadistic violence in a self-sustaining cycle and that making it much less likely that boys and male teenagers would witness any sadistic violence greatly decreased the appetite for sadistic violence in the society again in a self-sustaining cycle.

> That claim runs contrary to basically everything we know about human psychology

Here are three studies that show no or inverse correlation between simulated media violence and actual criminal violence:

1. “Results suggest that societal consumption of media violence is not predictive of increased societal violence rates.”[0]

2. “… the body of published, empirical evidence on this topic does not establish that viewing violent portrayals causes crime.”[1]

3. “We find that violent crime decreases on days with larger theater audiences for violent movies. … The substitution away from more dangerous activities in the field can explain the differences with the laboratory findings.”[2]

What is the evidentiary basis for your opposing claim? Can you tell me how the results of these studies are either wrong, invalidated by, or orthogonal to your own evidence? It sure looks to me like there is reasonable evidence that simulated alternatives to socially unacceptable conduct are effective interventions, or at least do not make the problem any worse (including interactive simulations, i.e. video games).

[0] https://doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12129

[1] https://doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2003.10.001

[2] https://doi.org/10.1162/qjec.2009.124.2.677

The problem is that the folks at Anthropic seem convinced that Claude is conscious (or at least likely to be so) and so there is nothing "simulated" about the harm that sadistic users would be causing it.

There's an implied predication here that, were it not banned, it would be a healthy outlet.

I am not so certain of that.

My gut says it would not be.

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