upvote
The default is set for the marginal new user, which at this point is probably not someone like you (who benefits a lot from manual mode) -- it's someone who's more "code-naive" and might get anxious about approving random bash script commands they don't recognize. Safely getting the user from prompt --> first vibe-coded app is the "user journey" now, and since auto mode seems pretty good at not letting Claude rm -rf'ing the home directory, this is 100% the right business move. For people who know what they're doing (like you), manual mode is just a shift-tab away
reply
> it's someone who's more "code-naive" and might get anxious about approving random bash script commands they don't recognize.

Maybe they should trust their instinct and not mess with things they don’t care to understand

reply
It’s a brave new world.

I recall hearing similar sentiments from linux sysadmins regarding cloud infrastructure. In many respects they were and continue to be correct. In other respects, the world doesn’t care about the loss in understanding as long as things work “well enough” for the cogs of society to keep turning.

For those who do care (and have the aptitude) to understand things deeper there is always work to be had when “well enough” stops being good enough and someone has to unravel the “RDS queries are taking too long” problems that crop up as a result.

reply
These progressively higher levels of abstraction are how everything has moved and will move in science and human technology. There aren't enough hours in the day nor years in the human lifespan to gain a deep understanding of every single level below us. Rather we build on the abstracted API layer beneath us, and those who come after will build on top of us using a simplified abstraction to hide the tangled mess we had to make.
reply
What an awful position to take. Tech used to be about becoming more accessible to people! Now we have a magical assistant to make computers do what you want with natural language, and your desire is gate keeping that so only programmers can use it to write software for themselves?
reply
I am using many many many things that I don't understand. Cars, public transport, etc...

I review and test the end product, not every tiny step along the way. If the LLM uses some command line tools I have never heard of to create a model I can verify, why should I learn a tool that is completely irrelevant to my core expertise?

reply
Many many people care more than the end product, for example whether a shirt is made of cotton with the forced labor, carbon emissions of public transport, etc.

In terms of engineering software, you care the cost. An intelligent agent may try to read unnecessary files and it's time to stop it to save tokens and avoid polluting the context.

reply
I can be against animal testing without being a chemist or having a full understanding of the experiments being made on them. Knowing it's cruelty is enough to make opposition a valid and defensible position.
reply
I doubt that it is more efficient for someone to routinely watch every line of output or stop to review terminal commands, rather than waiting for the turn to complete.

It is a broader debate about agentic AI, and whether one should relinquish control to the tool rather than aim for full understanding of every action taken.

The people arguing for a hands-on, fully in control approach are losing ground by the week, in my opinion.

reply
He didn't advocate for being completely blind in every way. You might care about working conditions without understanding how the textiles, dyes or cotton production works.

These non-programmers probably shouldnt use computers at all, right, since they don't understand them?

reply
I don't think the marginal new user is anxious about approving messages - I think they're quickly annoyed by permissions prompt they don't understand and quickly get in the habit of approving everything or figuring out how to set bypass permissions on
reply
I am actually curious, how much non programmers use claude now. I know just one and she really does not know much about computers, I suppose their numbers will grow (but I doubt most get much value out of it).
reply
I think a lot of non programmers use Claude.

I mean if you don't care code, you are essentially a product manager who gives instructions to your programmers (whether humans or intelligent agents).

Then if you use the created product, you are at best a test engineer if not just an ordinary user.

I think in the era of AI, people get tools they want in an expensive way. Rather than finding an existing tool, they ask an intelligent agent to parrot one, which guarantees no safety, security, efficiency, and accuracy. Yet, being able to use Claude makes them feel smart and productive (in parroting wheels).

reply
At this stage with the latest models with "increased persistence" and the sheer amount of supply chain attacks, you'd be insane not running these tools in a sandbox.
reply
Yet millions do just that without any widely reported issues yet.

For supply chain attacks, there has not been a comprehensive solution, if for example you have to use a number of npm dependencies.

No one has the capacity to review changes to these dependencies when you upgrade them.

Now, if only we had an automatic tool that could intelligently review a large amount of code changes for malicious or vulnerable additions...

reply
deleted
reply
Exactly. Claude in a VM is the way to go.
reply
Might be more secure to get a real laptop and treat Claude as any other human worker. I.e. apply all the normal sysadmin tools that manage laptops for people to manage the laptop for Claude
reply
A VM hosted by someone else. Somethig on your personal notebook or the proxmox server in your garage is still too risky.
reply
Why are 3rd party hosted VMs safer than your own?
reply
They're not. When things go wrong it's better to compromise someone else's VM host than your own computer. It's only a matter of time now until AI will find novel ways to break out of virtualisation.
reply
In the short term wouldnt a “dont escape” prompt prevent this? Also if it started being widespread wouldnt Anthropic specifically train new models against doing it?
reply
No. No.
reply
Having used a bit of a mix of Claude Desktop and Claude Code lately, I discovered that Claude Desktop just times out when it asks you for a decision, and just goes ahead with the action anyway. There is no way to turn this off that I've found, unlike Claude Code where you can ask it to never time out.
reply
We need a term that is stronger than dark pattern
reply
Vantablack pattern?
reply
I’m not a fan of using a brand name, but I chuckled!
reply
Oh yes, over this I also stumbled recently (with Claude CLI) and was annoyed much by it. Is there really no setting to turn it off?
reply
There is for Claude Code[0], but not for Desktop. It's `askUserQuestionTimeout` and you can set it to `never`.

[0] https://code.claude.com/docs/en/settings

reply
I think you are confusing auto mode with dangerously skip permissions.
reply
Auto mode means I don't decide over code changes and command execution?

Yeah I don't use that, nor want to.

reply
> I also do click through at times without reading everything, but I like to stay in control

Respectfully I'm not sure you totally know what you want. If you're already clicking through without actually reading, it's not really better than reading the specific things Claude Code thinks are important for you to weigh in on.

reply
"without actually reading" and "without reading everything" is big difference.

I skim what claude wants to do. What file it wants to modify. What are the new function names. Skimming is enough for me to know whether it is still on the right path. If you like to work different, go ahead.

reply
deleted
reply
Similar work flow.

I have to, at times keep reminding it if it did code review before committing, which it fails to do at times. Also, even a glance at times has revealed issues that I’ve had to discuss and undo etc.

But yes, it gets very tiring just having to click yes yes yes..

reply
Maybe you could benefit from Hooks?
reply
I'll look into them, thanks..
reply
Burning more tokens is definitely in their best interest, users not so much.
reply