Re:Claude asked to renumber pages deletes professor's syllab...
by pllbnk on Saturday November 14, 2026 @01:20PM
(#50499376)
Agreed. There's nothing rogue, just being sloppy. But starting the title with "Sloppy Claude AI..." certainly won't get as many clicks.
Re:Claude asked to renumber pages deletes professor's syllab...
by ben_w on Saturday November 14, 2026 @01:29PM
(#50499461)
> There's nothing rogue, just being sloppy
What's the difference, when you ignore anthropomorphic considerations about what the AI was "thinking" as it did the things?
Re:Claude asked to renumber pages deletes professor's syllab...
by nvme0n1p1 on Saturday November 14, 2026 @02:15PM
(#50499880)
It's a computer program. "Rogue" implies autonomous intent, and shifts accountability away from the people using tools irresponsibly.
Imagine you pipe /dev/random to your terminal, and it spits out the word "fuck". Should we then write a headline saying "Rogue random number generator curses at tenured professor"?
Or you step out of your car while it's in gear, and it crashes into your house. "Rogue vehicle injures its owner's child"?
Re:Claude asked to renumber pages deletes professor's syllab...
by ben_w on Saturday November 14, 2026 @02:24PM
(#50499951)
Right, so no difference:
when you ignore anthropomorphic considerations about what the AI was "thinking" as it did the things?
Re:Claude asked to renumber pages deletes professor's syllab...
by pllbnk on Saturday November 14, 2026 @02:57PM
(#50500210)
Computers have been anthropomorphized for a very long time. AI is also a kind of anthropomorphism for the use of the word "intelligence". If we wanted to move away from that, perhaps we could say something like "maliciously developed statistical language model", or "malicious statistical language model" to replace rogue. In this case it was merely a "statistical language model", but if the author sees a need to append an adjective, then I think sloppy is more accurate than rogue.
Also, I can’t stand these articles. Oooh “rogue” spooky AI deletes things!