Anthropic announced an updated usage policy yesterday that will prohibit its users from abusing Claude AI models, sparking a debate about AI’s consciousness and chatbot ethics. On today’s episode of The Editors, Rich asks, “Are you, Charlie Cooke, polite to your AI?”
“Yes, absolutely. I don’t believe that I’m talking to a person or to an entity with a soul, but I do think that there are very good reasons for the AI companies to insist that their customers refrain from bullying or abusing the chatbots,” Charlie says.
“My reasons for this being a good policy, irrespective of its provenance, are as follows: First, I don’t think it’s good for me to scream and shout at a chatbot. . . . I don’t think that’s good for my soul. Two, I don’t think that we are going to improve as a society if people en masse become accustomed to treating what seems like human beings . . . badly all day.”
“Even if it’s genuinely just a computer . . . . don’t you think that’s going to bleed into how you treat other actual people? I do.”
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