I don’t think that’s a fair characterization.

It may be a non-story for us in engineering who are very familiar with the technology, but the story here is the spread of AI and the expectations that the general public have about how computers work and how those mental models will take time to update.

Just like early computer users were surprised that a document could be lost if not saved, unlike typewriters or pencils and paper before them, it’s likely the products and technology will need to shift to be more user friendly. Just like the introduction of auto-save.

For the general public Id agree with you, for professors (of any subject) I would set the bar way higher.

Have you seen the university entrance exams from 100 years ago? When going to university actually meant something? I would say less than 1% of people currently at university at this time would pass them.

The student body got dumber as university changed from being a beacon of enlightenment to a profit maximiser, and the standard of professor dropped equally as sharply.

It took me 15 minutes to teach my chief commercial officer git and now she uses it every day. Expecting a university professor to understand a version control system is not hard, its only hard if the professor is an idiot and we (collectivly) accept that as ok

Yes, I meant a non-story for the audience of Hacker News.

So deleting the files when not prompted to is correct behavior?

Files not recovered -> human in the wrong

Files recovered due to independent backup -> no problem

Is there any scenario in which you'd accept Claude's behavior as faulty here?

[delayed]

This is obviously bad model behavior (though I'd personally like to see the full transcript to see if there are any clues in there as to why it made the mistake.)

It's hardly new, though. We've been talking about models making stupid mistakes like this for years.

From <https://www.acm.org/code-of-ethics>:

  ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct

  Computing professionals' actions change the world. To act responsibly, they
  should reflect upon the wider impacts of their work, consistently supporting
  the public good. 
  ...
  1.2 Avoid harm.
  In this document, "harm" means negative consequences, especially when those
  consequences are significant and unjust. Examples of harm include unjustified
  physical or mental injury, unjustified destruction or disclosure of
  information, and unjustified damage to property, reputation, and the
  environment. This list is not exhaustive.

"There were no fatalities and the victims are in stable condition."

Non-story!