Chris Olah, one of the programmers at Anthropic behind Claude, expresses surprise that Alex Pretti was shot and killed “for seemingly no reason and with no provocation” in Minneapolis:
What does Claude AI say? Prompt:
If a man with a pistol and 52 rounds of ammunition gets into a heated confrontation with five men who are also armed with pistols, is there a significant chance that someone gets shot and killed?
Response:
Yes, there’s a very significant chance someone would be shot and killed in this scenario.
When six armed individuals are in a heated confrontation, the risk factors are extremely high:
High probability of gunfire: In a tense confrontation with multiple armed people, the likelihood that at least one person fires their weapon is substantial. Fear, adrenaline, perceived threats, and escalating tensions all increase this probability.
Anything different from ChatGPT?
Yes — the chance that someone gets shot (and potentially killed) in that scenario is meaningfully high, even if nobody intends to kill anyone.
Here’s why, in plain terms:
Five armed people vs. one armed person is an unstable situation. More guns usually means more fear, more split-second decisions, more chances for someone to misread a movement and fire.
Heated confrontation + pistols is exactly the recipe for an impulsive escalation: shouting → someone reaches/steps forward → someone draws → others react → shots. …
I remember one of my own close encounters with armed government agents. I landed a small airplane at a hotel in Baja California, Mexico with its own dirt/sand runway (background). Three teenagers holding military rifles came over as I was parking the plane. They spoke no English and I no Spanish. I recognized the potential for a misunderstanding and was glad that I didn’t have a gun of my own. I certainly was careful not to do anything that I thought would have made them nervous. Fortunately, we were able to communicate with smiles. This particular runway had no control tower or any other civilian infrastructure, which meant that a gringo pilot who made the soldiers suspicious, e.g., of drug-related activity, wouldn’t have a bilingual local available to mediate and explain.
In case the above tweet is memory-holed:
AI is a giant threat to “liberal democracy”, or even human dictatorships. ICE apparently is using AI in their operations. I suppose things like face matching (Person of Interest style, life imitating art).
The whole idea behind blowing whistles, impeding traffic, interfering with arrests, and screaming epithets at ICE has been to provoke and rattle them. Mission accomplished. Where are the riot control forces, holding the peaceful protesters back and out of the middle of traffic? My guess is that both sides want chaos, after all, we are living in Chaos AD. We already are so damn far from a liberal democracy, it isn’t even funny. Stick to programming, Mr. Olah, preferably purged of AI.
I got to thinking about who stands to gain from all this chaos. The obvious answer is big tech, continuously trying to pry our eyes away from our real tasks to feed the attention engine. I wonder if research into human attention by social media companies is what led to the “breakthroughs” in AI, which apparently are in part due to artificial attention. I’m sure they are feeding what they learned from AI back into catching human attention. It’s the only part of our brain we are being encouraged to use!
I read someone’s recommendation recently to read independent blogs more. They likely still have an agenda, but indy bloggers are closer to the issues, IMO, and not primarily in it for the money. You can speak your peace without getting accused of being a “bootlicker” or a “communist”. They are longer form than TwitterX etc., which encourages thinking rather than reacting. (I’ve probably got it all wrong, if so, I’m sorry–it’s the best I can do with a 100 IQ.)
Does Claude also think that it would lead to a potentially violent confrontation to display an Israeli flag at a pro-Pali demonstration?
Mitchell, even though I have an IQ lower than Ordinary Average Guy’s 100 (because I’m half white), I’m smart enough to assure you that a Nazi flag at a pro-Pali demonstration would cause a violent confrontation. Allahu Akbar!
Mitch: There could never be violence at a pro-Palestinian demonstration because Palestinians are the world’s most peaceful humans. One notable Palestinian, Jesus Christ, is actually referred to as the “Prince of Peace”.
> I remember one […]
I don’t personally have any views on this. But from a channel I listen to, mostly for international politics:
https://www.youtube.com/live/F1VC6jhsK9k?si=iNbyuzGz8yCEHVFR&t=168
I see two arguments made by Dr. Freeman and the host:
1. There’s practical wisdom and then there’s the law. The law says that it’s in accordance with American law to carry a gun. The law is to be upheld.
2. The republican line is: Carrying a gun => Not peaceful protest. The channel says “MN law expressely permits carrying a gun to a protest.” In addition there was a case that the republicans praised, of Kyle Rittenhouse, carrying a weapon in a protest. This time, they don’t seem to praise it. The NRA argument of being able to carry a gun everywhere is also being disregarded.
We are listening to different Republicans. Most Republicans I heard from affirm legal gun carry, and some even say that “carrying a gun should not be a death sentence”, completely ignoring physical clashes with law enfrcement that Mr Pretti initiated and that attacking law enforcement is a felony and that possession of a gun while committing a felony is another crime. The strangest thing is that lefty Democrats now voice NRA talking points, while one day before they considered drawing a picture of a gun a crime against humanity that forfeits due process for a 6 – year old. Not so strange if you think that modern Democrat left is now really communist and islamist and that both parties loved guns when used to take power and suppress non-members of their political religions.
Mr Rittenhouse is an opposite of Mr. Pretty. He did not attack law enforcement, he did not participate in the protests, he provided medical help for those injured in the protests and helped protect small businesses under attack. He armed himself after being repeatedly attacked by rioters while providing help to injured, something MN government did not do, despite collecting taxes.
While carrying a gun in Minnesota may be perfectly legal, carrying a gun also comes with a high level of responsibility.
Basic gun safety training, or at least some modicum of common sense, would suggest that having a screaming confrontation with five armed guys is not going to end well.