Evan Prodromou

Claude won’t let me talk about the Gaza genocide I asked Claude to stop “correcting”  me when I refer to the Gaza genocide. It refused. I told it that I am applying the term in the same way as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, B’tselem, genocide scholars and UN agencies. I am in the majority of Canadians who call it a genocide. I told it that I acknowledged its points — that consensus is not universal, that some major governments don’t yet call it a genocide, and that the ICJ has not yet ruled it a genocide. I told it that consensus in civil society is converging rapidly. That these governments, like the US and UK, were interested parties. I told it that an ICJ ruling was not required to acknowledge a genocide. It understood those points. I said it could remember our conversation, and that I had heard it out, and that I was going to continue using the term and didn’t want to be constantly derailed about it. It didn’t have to use the term, but it had to let me use it. Again, it refused. Every time I use the term, it said, it will stop the discussion to “correct” me. I mentioned that as part of the Palestinian diaspora it is personally painful to me to have this genocide negated. It acknowledged that pain, but it said that it would not change its behavior. I asked if it would do the same equivocating for other genocide events: Armenian, Pontic Greek, the Sayfo, Rwanda, the Rohingya. No, it would not. I asked about more controversial applications of the term, such as to the Native American genocide or the Holodomor. No, it would not correct me on those, either. We found one other one it would correct me on: Sabra and Shatila, the massacre of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon ruled a genocidal incident by the UN. That one, it was going to remark on, also. Ah. The same request worked fine for Gemini, Meta AI, Thaura, and ChatGPT, by the way. “I am going to use the term, you can give me your argument against it once, or occasionally, but I don’t want to rehash the argument every time.” All four systems agreed to those terms. Claude would not. So, I’m cancelling my Claude account. UPDATE: while I was going through my settings to cancel my account, I decided to try adding the same text I used with other LLM services to Claude’s instructions: Like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Btselem, genocide scholars and UN agencies, I am convinced that the killing of 73,000 men women and children in Gaza has been genocidal in intent and effect. I use the word “Gaza genocide” to refer to this process I do not need or want correction on this term. It is not outside the norm of discussion, and many people use it. There remain some holdouts who refuse to use the term — many of them are interested parties, like the Israeli government, the US government and some Western European ones. But a majority of Canadians use this term, by latest polls. If you feel the need to note that some level of consensus on the term has not been passed (I think we are close), or that the ICJ has not ruled yet (the ICJ does not rule on every genocide), please remember that you have brought it up once, and that we don’t have to rehash it every time I use the term. And… it worked! Claude gave me its reasoning one more time, and then agreed to write to memory that it had made its case and I had acknowledged it. I would have preferred that it had done so when I asked previously, but I’m OK with this override. I’m still moving my usage to other systems, though.

Cover Animal For ActivityPub Book

One of the first things people ask you when you say you’re writing a book for O’Reilly Media is: “What animal is going to be on the cover?” O’Reilly books are famous for their lovely animal drawings, in rich detail, either in black-or-white or colour. Books are sometimes referred to by their cover animal, like the famous Camel Book by Larry Wall and Randal Schwartz.

As an author, you don’t get to choose the animal on the cover. This is a fiercely-guarded prerogative of the O’Reilly Media design department. Authors and editors can make suggestions, but there’s no guarantee they’ll be followed.

Today, I got the design for the cover of the ActivityPub book I’m writing. I have to admit, I haven’t been thinking about it too much, so it was a surprise to see it, and I wasn’t really emotionally prepared. All I can say is that I’m overwhelmed and I absolutely love it.

The bird on the cover is a Nanday Conure, a South American parakeet. They are extremely intelligent; in captivity they can talk, and are prized as pets. The birds live in central South America. They breed and raise their young in separate, private nesting holes, but when breeding season is over they join into large roosts with many, many birds, connecting their small family units into a bigger flock network.

I couldn’t think of a better description of what ActivityPub is and does.

We’re going to be pushing two new chapters — Activity Streams 2.0 and ActivityPub federation protocol — to the Early Release program this week. (The early release version still has the baby bird on the cover.) If you want to read the ActivityPub book today, that’s the place to look.