Re:If you love a website, back it up
by philipkglass on Monday November 02, 2026 @05:16PM
(#50344696)
I don't think that mainstream models will try to rewrite the past, but I wouldn't trust models to helpfully engage with your intent. As search engines encode better understanding of queries, they also become more model-like with refusals for "naughty" queries. Just compare something like
Disclosure Day free stream
across Yandex and Google. I'm sure that Google has indexed the same web sites, but Yandex has a free stream as the #1 result and Google has either deindexed it completely or pushed it below dozens of less-relevant, more-legal sites. (According to Google, the site Yandex showed me wasn't even DMCA'd out of the results.)
This isn't just relevant for piracy. Paid subscriptions to frontier models will refuse or downgrade answers to questions about the natural sciences and engineering. Unlike cybersecurity, where you can get specially approved to use models with fewer refusals, I don't think there is any program you can join where Anthropic will treat you like a grownup who has already read Carleone's Tactical Missile Warheads book. Opus just won't discuss details of high explosive engineering at all.
This isn't just relevant for piracy. Paid subscriptions to frontier models will refuse or downgrade answers to questions about the natural sciences and engineering. Unlike cybersecurity, where you can get specially approved to use models with fewer refusals, I don't think there is any program you can join where Anthropic will treat you like a grownup who has already read Carleone's Tactical Missile Warheads book. Opus just won't discuss details of high explosive engineering at all.