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by halJordan7 hours ago |
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upvoteby mossTechnician4 hours ago|
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Claude's terms of service makes it very clear that their employees will read messages[0] to determine that they don't contain the things that these messages contained[1].

> Review is needed to enforce our Usage Policy... designated members of our Trust & Safety team may access this data on a need-to-know basis as a part of their evaluation process.

[0]: https://privacy.claude.com/en/articles/10458704-how-does-ant...

[1]: https://www.anthropic.com/legal/aup

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upvoteby kube-system3 hours ago|
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I highly doubt she read the terms.

The critical part of a "threat" is that the perpetrator takes some intentional method to deliver it.

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upvoteby karmakaze7 hours ago|
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I don't think it qualifies for this part:

> The communication must be made in a manner in which another person may view it.

Even 'transmitted' is too broad if you also consider iCloud backup to be a means.

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upvoteby axus2 hours ago|
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A reasonable person would not expect humans to review the millions of messages passing through the LLMs, or their own threats to ever be transmitted to a human without their authorization.

Reporting the danger is by itself a good deed. But there should be a better way of restricting firearms from the probably irresponsible lady than using inappropriate charges to punish the thoughtcrime, OR waiting for them to commit violence.

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upvoteby Zigurd5 hours ago|
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Too broad. Unless you're transferring ink from a typewriter ribbon onto paper in a hut with no electricity, your words, or my words as I type this, are being grammar checked by something partly in the cloud. If I delete my words, are you saying I've transmitted them nevertheless?
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upvoteby zdragnar5 hours ago|
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She may have assumed that the chat conversation was private, but it wasn't. She sent a message of intent to harm and a human received the message.
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upvoteby kube-system3 hours ago|
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Yes but the law usually evaluates the application of a statute within the context of someone's mental state. This is why you are not guilty of battery when you trip and accidentally bump into someone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea
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upvoteby zdragnar3 hours ago|
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That depends on the crime; several related crimes are only distinguished by intent. Negligence is itself a crime if it is the cause of a preventable death when the person has a reasonable obligation, such as when driving a vehicle.

I'm not really sure that this can be likened to a diary when it is called a "chat" but that's for the legal system to determine, not me sitting on my couch.

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upvoteby kube-system3 hours ago|
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Any reasonable person presumes when they chat with Claude that it is a computer program on the other end. "Claude is AI" is explicit on the page right under the input box. The word "chat" doesn't anthropomorphize the situation.

And yes, some laws are "strict liability", I don't think this one is.

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upvoteby caffeinated_me4 hours ago|
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There was no intent for a human to read the message. By your logic, if she wrote a threat in a diary and a burglar broke in and read it, it would be a crime on her part.
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upvoteby zdragnar3 hours ago|
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Chats with a company's computer aren't private the way a diary is. A better example would be she intended to write it in a word document and instead accidentally sent it in an email to a random person.
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upvoteby MisterMunchkin3 hours ago|
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They didn’t receive it, they secretly extracted it by spying on her.
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upvoteby gopher_space4 hours ago|
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Saying that she “sent a message” is both literally true and obviously intellectually dishonest.
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upvoteby zdragnar3 hours ago|
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If she had intended to write it in a word document on her computer but instead accidentally wrote it into her email client and sent it to a random person, I'm not convinced she would escape getting charged then either.

It's not any different than telling an automated phone voice tree system that you plan on killing someone and then being surprised that your words were later heard by a human. She absolutely told a company's computer. She sent the message.

The law may have been intended for more direct threats to a person as a means of intimidation, but that's a separate conversation.

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upvoteby gopher_space2 hours ago|
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Sure, you could intentionally conflate analogies like that if you wanted to mislead.
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upvoteby wildzzz3 hours ago|
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The Florida statute requires that it be transmitted in a manner that can be viewed by another person. If you have no idea that someone could view your communications with a chatbot, did you really intend to break that specific law? Technically, that threat was communicated to another person but not through her own intentions.
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upvoteby lazyasciiart2 hours ago|
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What if she mailed it to herself through the post, and her housemate accidentally opened the mail?
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upvoteby aeturnum5 hours ago|
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A sibling comment includes an important rider to the provision: "...in any manner in which it may be viewed by another person." If you wrote this in a google doc, it almost certainly would not qualify as a threat under this statute. Even though google docs, like LLM chats, have administrative override and you could look at their contents - you would not expect either to be "viewed by another person."

IMO I do not think this is a grey area and it's legal to tell a LLM you want to kill someone. It's certainly not a "threat" like you might send to another person, though it may end up being evidence of conspiracy or premeditation. I suspect we would be well served to, after a few years of experience, put together some laws governing when LLM chats must be made available to authorities.

It is very interesting that the LLM responses to these lines - the context around what she is saying - is not in the article. I suspect, as is the case in many instances where LLMs are involved in violent planning, that the LLM was urging this behavior on. Basically entrapment - you are encouraged by a robot to become more violent and vindictive and then when you do you are handed over to police.

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