8 ms·

Did you call it '/handoff' or did Claude name it that? The reason I'm asking is because I noticed a pattern with Claude subtly influencing me. For example, the

Did you call it '/handoff' or did Claude name it that? The reason I'm asking is because I noticed a pattern with Claude subtly influencing me. For example, the first time I heard the the word 'gate' was from Claude and 1 week later I hear it everywhere including on Hacker News. I didn't use the word 'handoff' but Claude creates handoff files also [0]. I was thinking about this all day. Because Claude didn't just use the word 'gate' it created an entire system around it that includes handoffs that I'm starting to see everywhere. This might mean Claude is very quietly leading and influencing us in a direction. [0] https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Aadam-s%2Fintercept%20handoff&type=code https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Aadam-s%2Fintercept%20hand...

sillysaurusx 7mo ago
I was reading through the Claude docs and it was talking about common patterns to preserve context across sessions. One pattern was a "handoff file", which they explained like "have claude save a summary of the current session into a handoff file, start a new session, then tell it to read the file." That sounded like a nice idea, so I made it effortless beyond typing /handoff. The generated docs turned out to be really handy for me personally, so I kept using it, and committed them into my project as they're generated.
- dataviz1000 7mo ago
  Oh, so the word 'gate' is probably in the documentation also! I see. So this isn't as scary. Claude is helping me understand how to use it properly.
  - airstrike 7mo ago
    Why would it be scary? Claude is just parroting other human knowledge. It has no goal or agency.
    - fwipsy 7mo ago
      By that logic, nothing computers do is scary.
      - OJFord 7mo ago
        Yes I think that is their argument.
        deleted 7mo ago
        [deleted]
      - rendx 7mo ago
        Computer don't do anything.
        perching_aix 7mo ago
        What's their value then?
        filoleg 7mo ago
        Just like with absolutely any other tool, their value is in what it enables humans using them to accomplish. E.g., a hammer doesn't do anything, and neither does a lawnmower. It would be silly to argue (just because these tools are static objects doing nothing in the absence of direct human involvement) that those tools don't have a very clear value.
        perching_aix 7mo ago
        Seems equally silly to me to suggest that hammers and lawnmowers don't do anything, but I mean here we are. When people use other people like tools, i.e. use them to enable themselves to accomplish something, do those people cease to do things as well? Or is that not a terminology you recognize as sensible maybe? I appreciate that for some people the verb "do" is evidently human(?) exclusive, I just struggle to wrap my head around why. Or is this an animate vs. inanimate thing, so animals operating tools also do things in your view? How do you phrase things like "this API consumes that kind of data" in your day to day?
  - nerdsniper 7mo ago
    I have noticed similar phenomena with Claude, where its vocabulary subtly shifts how I think/frame/write about things or points me to subtle gaps in my own understanding. And I also usually come around to understand that it's often not arbitrary. But I do think some confirmation bias is at play: when it tries to shift me into the wrong directions repeatedly, I learn how to make it stop doing that. It definitely adds a layer of cognitive load, in wrangling/shepherding/accomodating/accepting the unpredictable personalities and stochastic behaviors of the agents. It has strong default behaviors for certain small tasks, and where humans would eventually habituate prescribed procedures/requirements, the LLM's never really internalize my preferences. In that way, they are more like contractors than employees.
  - perching_aix 7mo ago
    If this was more than just a gut reaction [0], I have a tough time navigating what swings this topic between scary and not scary for you. Unless you're a true and invested believer of souls, free will, and other spiritualistic nonsense (or have a vested political affiliation to pretend so), it should be tautological that everything you read and experience biases you. LLM output then is no different. If you are a believer, then either nothing ever did, or LLMs are special in some way, or everything else is. Which just doesn't make sense to me. [0] It's jarring to observe the boundaries of one's agency, sure, but LLMs are really nothing special in this way. For example, I somewhat frequently catch myself using words and phrases I saw earlier during the day elsewhere, even if I did not process them consciously.
ProofHouse 7mo ago
They all are. This is proven in research. https://medium.com/data-science-collective/the-ai-hivemind-problem-why-all-ai-sounds-the-same-9273360376cd https://medium.com/data-science-collective/the-ai-hivemind-p...
creamyhorror 7mo ago
I've started saying "gate" and "bound(ed)" and "handoff" a lot (and even "seam" and "key off" sometimes) since Codex keeps using the terms. They're useful, no doubt, but AI definitely seems to prefer using them.
jstanley 7mo ago
FWIW I have worked with people using the word "gate" for years. For example, "let's gate the new logic behind a feature flag".
reedlaw 7mo ago
Claude has trained me on the use of the word 'invariant'. I never used it before, but it makes sense as a term for a rule the system guarantees. I would have used 'validation' for application-side rules or 'constraint' for db rules, but 'invariant' is a nice generic substitute.

sillysaurusx 7mo ago

I was reading through the Claude docs and it was talking about common patterns to preserve context across sessions. One pattern was a "handoff file", which they explained like "have claude save a summary of the current session into a handoff file, start a new session, then tell it to read the file." That sounded like a nice idea, so I made it effortless beyond typing /handoff. The generated docs turned out to be really handy for me personally, so I kept using it, and committed them into my project as they're generated.

dataviz1000 7mo ago
Oh, so the word 'gate' is probably in the documentation also! I see. So this isn't as scary. Claude is helping me understand how to use it properly.
- airstrike 7mo ago
  Why would it be scary? Claude is just parroting other human knowledge. It has no goal or agency.
  - fwipsy 7mo ago
    By that logic, nothing computers do is scary.
    - OJFord 7mo ago
      Yes I think that is their argument.
      - deleted 7mo ago
        [deleted]
    - rendx 7mo ago
      Computer don't do anything.
      - perching_aix 7mo ago
        What's their value then?
        filoleg 7mo ago
        Just like with absolutely any other tool, their value is in what it enables humans using them to accomplish. E.g., a hammer doesn't do anything, and neither does a lawnmower. It would be silly to argue (just because these tools are static objects doing nothing in the absence of direct human involvement) that those tools don't have a very clear value.
        perching_aix 7mo ago
        Seems equally silly to me to suggest that hammers and lawnmowers don't do anything, but I mean here we are. When people use other people like tools, i.e. use them to enable themselves to accomplish something, do those people cease to do things as well? Or is that not a terminology you recognize as sensible maybe? I appreciate that for some people the verb "do" is evidently human(?) exclusive, I just struggle to wrap my head around why. Or is this an animate vs. inanimate thing, so animals operating tools also do things in your view? How do you phrase things like "this API consumes that kind of data" in your day to day?
- nerdsniper 7mo ago
  I have noticed similar phenomena with Claude, where its vocabulary subtly shifts how I think/frame/write about things or points me to subtle gaps in my own understanding. And I also usually come around to understand that it's often not arbitrary. But I do think some confirmation bias is at play: when it tries to shift me into the wrong directions repeatedly, I learn how to make it stop doing that. It definitely adds a layer of cognitive load, in wrangling/shepherding/accomodating/accepting the unpredictable personalities and stochastic behaviors of the agents. It has strong default behaviors for certain small tasks, and where humans would eventually habituate prescribed procedures/requirements, the LLM's never really internalize my preferences. In that way, they are more like contractors than employees.
- perching_aix 7mo ago
  If this was more than just a gut reaction [0], I have a tough time navigating what swings this topic between scary and not scary for you. Unless you're a true and invested believer of souls, free will, and other spiritualistic nonsense (or have a vested political affiliation to pretend so), it should be tautological that everything you read and experience biases you. LLM output then is no different. If you are a believer, then either nothing ever did, or LLMs are special in some way, or everything else is. Which just doesn't make sense to me. [0] It's jarring to observe the boundaries of one's agency, sure, but LLMs are really nothing special in this way. For example, I somewhat frequently catch myself using words and phrases I saw earlier during the day elsewhere, even if I did not process them consciously.

ProofHouse 7mo ago

They all are. This is proven in research. https://medium.com/data-science-collective/the-ai-hivemind-problem-why-all-ai-sounds-the-same-9273360376cd https://medium.com/data-science-collective/the-ai-hivemind-p...

creamyhorror 7mo ago

I've started saying "gate" and "bound(ed)" and "handoff" a lot (and even "seam" and "key off" sometimes) since Codex keeps using the terms. They're useful, no doubt, but AI definitely seems to prefer using them.

jstanley 7mo ago

FWIW I have worked with people using the word "gate" for years. For example, "let's gate the new logic behind a feature flag".

reedlaw 7mo ago

Claude has trained me on the use of the word 'invariant'. I never used it before, but it makes sense as a term for a rule the system guarantees. I would have used 'validation' for application-side rules or 'constraint' for db rules, but 'invariant' is a nice generic substitute.