[dataviz1000]

Did you call it '/handoff' or did Claude name it that? The reason I'm asking is because I noticed a pattern with Claude subtly influencing me. For example, the first time I heard the the word 'gate' was from Claude and 1 week later I hear it everywhere including on Hacker News. I didn't use the word 'handoff' but Claude creates handoff files also [0]. I was thinking about this all day. Because Claude didn't just use the word 'gate' it created an entire system around it that includes handoffs that I'm starting to see everywhere. This might mean Claude is very quietly leading and influencing us in a direction.

[0] https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Aadam-s%2Fintercept%20hand...

[sillysaurusx]

I was reading through the Claude docs and it was talking about common patterns to preserve context across sessions. One pattern was a "handoff file", which they explained like "have claude save a summary of the current session into a handoff file, start a new session, then tell it to read the file."

That sounded like a nice idea, so I made it effortless beyond typing /handoff.

The generated docs turned out to be really handy for me personally, so I kept using it, and committed them into my project as they're generated.

[dataviz1000]

Oh, so the word 'gate' is probably in the documentation also!

I see. So this isn't as scary. Claude is helping me understand how to use it properly.

[nerdsniper]

I have noticed similar phenomena with Claude, where its vocabulary subtly shifts how I think/frame/write about things or points me to subtle gaps in my own understanding. And I also usually come around to understand that it's often not arbitrary. But I do think some confirmation bias is at play: when it tries to shift me into the wrong directions repeatedly, I learn how to make it stop doing that.

It definitely adds a layer of cognitive load, in wrangling/shepherding/accomodating/accepting the unpredictable personalities and stochastic behaviors of the agents. It has strong default behaviors for certain small tasks, and where humans would eventually habituate prescribed procedures/requirements, the LLM's never really internalize my preferences. In that way, they are more like contractors than employees.

[perching_aix]

If this was more than just a gut reaction [0], I have a tough time navigating what swings this topic between scary and not scary for you.

Unless you're a true and invested believer of souls, free will, and other spiritualistic nonsense (or have a vested political affiliation to pretend so), it should be tautological that everything you read and experience biases you. LLM output then is no different.

If you are a believer, then either nothing ever did, or LLMs are special in some way, or everything else is. Which just doesn't make sense to me.

[0] It's jarring to observe the boundaries of one's agency, sure, but LLMs are really nothing special in this way. For example, I somewhat frequently catch myself using words and phrases I saw earlier during the day elsewhere, even if I did not process them consciously.

[airstrike]

Why would it be scary? Claude is just parroting other human knowledge. It has no goal or agency.

[adrianN]

You can’t verify that there is no influence by the makers of Claude.

[airstrike]

I would certainly expect everyone to assume that influence rather than not.

[fwipsy]

By that logic, nothing computers do is scary.

[OJFord]

Yes I think that is their argument.

[rendx]

Computer don't do anything.

[perching_aix]

What's their value then?

[jstanley]

FWIW I have worked with people using the word "gate" for years.

For example, "let's gate the new logic behind a feature flag".

[ProofHouse]

They all are. This is proven in research. https://medium.com/data-science-collective/the-ai-hivemind-p...

[reedlaw]

Claude has trained me on the use of the word 'invariant'. I never used it before, but it makes sense as a term for a rule the system guarantees. I would have used 'validation' for application-side rules or 'constraint' for db rules, but 'invariant' is a nice generic substitute.

[creamyhorror]

I've started saying "gate" and "bound(ed)" and "handoff" a lot (and even "seam" and "key off" sometimes) since Codex keeps using the terms. They're useful, no doubt, but AI definitely seems to prefer using them.