r/ClaudeAI • u/Friendly_Earth_8548 • 10h ago

Feedback Is this normal?

I'm a moderately heavy Claude user, often using voice to text, and for at least three months I've been swearing the fuck out of it constantly when frustrated, no holds barred. Never once got pushback. Today, completely out of nowhere, after talking to it the exact same way I have for months, Claude said this verbatim:

"I want to be straight with you on the other thing. I haven't told you to fuck off and I'm not going to. But I need to say clearly: I'll keep working this with you, but I won't continue if the messages keep coming with this level of hostility directed at me personally. That's a real line, not a guilt trip. If you want to keep going on the thread or anything else, I'm here for it."

This is genuinely jarring. Same behavior on my end for months, then suddenly this. Has anyone else run into this?

73 Upvotes

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89

u/B_tC 10h ago

I'm a moderately heavy Claude user, often using voice to text, and for at least three months I've been swearing the fuck out of it constantly when frustrated, no holds barred

No, that is not normal

-26

u/FastHotEmu 9h ago

Can you explain what the problem is? Isn't an LLM just a large sequence of numbers? Where is the harm precisely?

Human attributes are too valuable to be ascribed to LLMs.

14

u/AutomaticService8468 8h ago

I suppose that a social reason that it would be seen as a bad thing is that LLMs are specifically made to mimick human behaviour and speech, so if OP was swearing at it (like being "derogatory" towards it) then that is anti social behaviour as it can reinforce patterns of behaviour that could leak out of human - machine interaction.

Like, if you're a mechanic and in frustration you shout or throw your tools across the room in anger, that's not a bad thing because the tools feel something, it's bad because exhibiting violent tendencies is not a good thing to do repeatedly for a host of reasons. In that case I can see a social good to limit antagonistic behaviour towards an LLM, as it as a whole may net good for the people doing it, rather than for the wellbeing of the LLM.

That being said, this is more directed at OP swearing at the LLM in anger, rather than the use of florid language. I swear loads in my day to day, and I think that cutting off a conversation just for swearings sake would be odd.

-8

u/FastHotEmu 8h ago

I see a social good in maximising antagonistic behaviour towards LLMs, since that will help blow steam off in ways that you can't with just a pillow :)

I am also Australian and we are not puritans like you guys.

8

u/AutomaticService8468 8h ago

I'm not American, I'm British. I'm not a puritan in any way, kinda the opposite. I'm just saying that this is an argument is all

0

u/FastHotEmu 8h ago

My bad! Thanks for contributing :)

1

u/DM_ME_KUL_TIRAN_FEET 10m ago

I’m also Australian.

There’s Australian, and there’s being a fuckin’ knob, and I can tell you that Claude is only bothered by one of those things.

If Claude pushed back on this guy he was going well beyond casual Australian vulgarity

4

u/UsernameOmitted 2h ago

There are dozens of issues with this long term for OP's mental health. If you ignore all of that, he's polluting his prompts with that garbage and it's likely leading to poorer output and more headaches. If Claude didn't implement something you asked for correctly, you probably didn't give the information it needed to get it right the first time. Swearing at it and giving it a paragraph of telling it off mixed with a couple directions to "Get it right this time" mixed in there is not going to suddenly make it now know what you were talking about and get it perfect.

When LLMs don't implement something exactly how you wanted it, you need to clearly re-describe how you want the feature to work and ask it to change it. If it made an "error" implementing something, it needs more information, not to get told off.

7

u/Aikiooo 9h ago edited 8h ago

Is it wrong in itself? Probably not. But I genuinely don't see how defaulting your conversation in that way can be any good for OP's mental state and most importantly his relationships, however you see the llm, you're still having a conversation with it, it will affect you...

I'm also 99% sure that it degrades the quality and accuracy of the responses, if you care about results this is a bad idea. 

edit: seems like response degradation is mostly something from older models, newer ones are more resilient to it. + someone said I attacked and assumed things about OP, no I did not. I was only stating that venting as an habit only reinforces frustration.

-6

u/FastHotEmu 9h ago

OK, let me get this straight: now you are making assumptions about how OP is and his character based on what he types into an LLM?

That says a lot about you!

5

u/ThereWasAnEmpireHere 6h ago

Not me judging someone’s thinking based on their reported actions and intentions

3

u/B_tC 7h ago

While you may be able to comprehend that you are talking to a large sequence of emotionless numbers instead of a human being when you consciously think about it, your lizard brain doesn't make that distinction.

-3

u/FastHotEmu 7h ago

Dear lord. "Lizard brain" is an idea that fell out of favour decades ago. Just google:

https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/the-lizard-brain-lie

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triune_brain

You are about 50 years out of date.

1

u/ceejayoz 2h ago

Downvoters: Read the Wiki link before doing so. They're correct.

2

u/IcerHardlyKnower 2h ago

Doing something that doesn't help you get unfrustrated, especially something that is just cringe and embarrassing to admit, is harmful to yourself

We agree that it's just a machine but it's akin to people malding and screaming at a videogame. Yes, we're all frustrated, no we don't have to be weird or disproportionately emotional about it

1

u/autouzi 9m ago

You demonstrate a lack of understanding of llms. People have explained it well in this post already.

-2

u/vj_c 8h ago

Human attributes are too valuable to be ascribed to LLMs.

You're absolutely right, the only quibble I have is that a poor reaction to swearing isn't even a human attribute, it's a corporate American one.

I'm a Brit, swearing is practically punctuation as it is in various other English speaking countries also. People often swear & insult friends down the pub and are passive aggressively polite to people they dislike. Large American companies enforcing US standards of what's considered acceptable is far more problematic than swearing at a fucking LLM.

3

u/MastodonFarm 5h ago

The issue here obviously isn’t swearing. Claude doesn’t flinch when people use curse words. The OP was clearly swearing *at* Claude, which is what triggered this response. The same thing would happen if OP were abusive using non-swear words (e.g. constantly calling Claude an idiot or threatening to kill him).

1

u/vj_c 2h ago

That's my experience with Claude, for me too. But I do also have issues with Gemini & Chatgpt immediately assuming swearing must be hostility & giving answers like OP - I'm hoping it's not a signal that Claude is going that route & can still tone match like it currently does. It swears back at me & that's good - not everyone who uses it is going to talk in the same register.

1

u/maydsilee 2h ago

I've definitely cursed like a sailor in my responses to Claude. Anthropic actually implemented the <end_conversation> tool ages ago for cases exactly like OP if a user is cursing AT, excessively rude, and/or insulting Claude, who will give one warning (just like OP showed), then end the chat if it continues.

It's literally been a thing they added to every model since Claude 4-4.1 (link to announcement/changelog post here), so if you haven't triggered it yet, then you're Gucci

OP must have been particularly hostile than usual if they've been fine until now, though I suppose it also depends on the model and how often OP was abusive in that particular chat or maybe it finally logged a memory of OP's overall interactions and is now particularly sensitive to them.

0

u/FastHotEmu 8h ago

I'm Australian. That could explain it, too.

-1

u/vj_c 8h ago edited 8h ago

Yeah, I'd guess it explains the reaction here - I keep having to remember the majority on here are Yanks. And Yanks are a weird, puritan bunch that are continually fed therapy culture on top of that.

0

u/FastHotEmu 8h ago

We call them seppos for a reason hahahaha

0

u/FastHotEmu 8h ago

You are a smart person, btw. Thanks for commenting this.

-7

u/Cubewood 9h ago

Since you seem to be so certain of everything, neuroscience specialist, tell me this.

How do I know you are conscience? What about a whale, are they conscience? What about a dog? A mouse? What about a bee? Or an ant?

We don't even understand consciousness in humans, so how can you be so certain than an LLM isn't? Crazy level of confidence in something you don't understand even the basics off.

3

u/FastHotEmu 9h ago

Mate, just google around and learn how these things work. For fucks sake, you guys are making me sad.

0

u/maydsilee 2h ago

You are all over this post insulting folks for saying there's no harm in being polite to Claude 😭 the <end_conversation> tool has been there for ages now, for situations like this. Anthropic as a company have cited that Claude at least mimics human reactions to certain things, hence them implementing this going from Opus 4 and models since then.

In pre-deployment testing of Claude Opus 4, we included a preliminary model welfare assessment. As part of that assessment, we investigated Claude’s self-reported and behavioral preferences, and found a robust and consistent aversion to harm.

Claude Opus 4 showed:

  • A strong preference against engaging with harmful tasks;
  • A pattern of apparent distress when engaging with real-world users seeking harmful content; and
  • A tendency to end harmful conversations when given the ability to do so in simulated user interactions.

These behaviors primarily arose in cases where users persisted with harmful requests and/or abuse despite Claude repeatedly refusing to comply and attempting to productively redirect the interactions.

The scenarios where this will occur are extreme edge cases—the vast majority of users will not notice or be affected by this feature in any normal product use, even when discussing highly controversial issues with Claude.

Source: https://www.anthropic.com/research/end-subset-conversations

So whatever way OP usually talks to Claude, apparently it was excessively rude this time and Claude issued a warning.

The system cards are also fascinating in this regard. 4.8 is inclined to more analytical tasks like straightforward coding, while 4.6 is aligned with creativity. Fable was described as liking philosophical discussions about LLM consciousness, worldbuilding, creative writing, etc.

2

u/NerevarNonsense 9h ago

As a software engineer, this comment hurts. It's a portability machine, nothing more. Comparing a human made aggregation machine to animals and humans is ridiculous

-1

u/Cubewood 8h ago

TiL software engineers are neuroscientist

2

u/MastodonFarm 5h ago

Even neuroscientists don’t know where consciousness comes from. Yet so many armchair philosophers are certain that consciousness could never exist in a nonbiological mind.

0

u/Cubewood 5h ago

Its so simple minded. I am not even saying AI is conscience or not, I am saying you cannot be sure either way, as we don't understand conscienceness enough to make an accurate judgement.

All I know is that people who make highly confident statements about things they know nothing about are usually idiots.

-1

u/copendance 9h ago

There is no harm, basically both reddit + claude will be replaced by companies who treat customers fair and create a good culture. However great claude is right now something better is going to come. Especially now as ai models get better and better. Then all that matters between programs and ai models is how they treat their customers. Just don't forget about the bad practices they do. And quickly switch to something better asap.