[snickerdoodle12]

> although I would find it extremely distasteful and frankly alarming

This objection is actually anthropomorphizing the LLM. There is nothing wrong with writing books where a character experiences distress, most great stories have some of that. Why is e.g. using an LLM to help write the part of the character experiencing distress "extremely distasteful and frankly alarming"?

[Aeolun]

Claude is actually smart enough to realize when it’s asked to write stuff that it’d normally think is inappropriate. But there’s certain topics that it gets iffy about and does not want to write even in the context of a story. It’s kind of funny, because it’ll start on the message with gusto, and then after a few seconds realize what it’s doing (presumably the protection kicking in) and abort the generation.

[ENGNR]

I want to say that part of empathy is a selfish, self preservation mechanism.

If that person over there is gleefully torturing a puppy… will they do it to me next?

If that person over there is gleefully torturing an LLM… will they do it to me next?