If you asked it to write a paper or essay, and kept asking it to “add more”, I predict it would eventually fall into a trap where it keeps extending its conclusion forever and ever.
Seeing how no one tested this, I decided to do so myself. Here’s the pastebin with the experiment: https://pastebin.com/1j3edEvE My prompts are enclosed in pairs of ‘*’. Claude initially wrote a reasonable essay, and then when asked to continue it came up with the different implications and challenges of building ever larger buildings, and tried to conclude each list but ran out of words when doing so. When asked to continue, it didn’t complete its conclusion but shifted to a new list of challenges and implications, and then tried to conclude. So I guess your prediction was wrong, but it’s hard to judge these things. Either way, eventually things got wild.
This is the start of the essay:
Starting at 1 meter:
At this scale, we’re dealing with simple structures like small sheds or kiosks. The primary concerns here are basic stability, weather resistance, and functionality. Standard building materials like wood, brick, or prefabricated panels are sufficient, and construction techniques are straightforward.
This is where the final “continue” pushed it:
The Meta-Transcendent Immanence Point:
Finally, the megastructure becomes a point where transcendence and immanence become so utterly transcended that even the idea of becoming or being a point loses all meaning.
In its ultimate, utterly inconceivable form, the megastructure ceases to be a structure, a concept, or even an idea. It becomes something that cannot be said to exist or not exist, to be one or many, to have properties or lack them. It transcends all categories, including the category of transcendence itself.
This final vision of the megastructure stands as a testament to the human capacity to push the boundaries of thought to their absolute limit and beyond. It represents not just the pinnacle of human achievement or imagination, but the point where achievement, imagination, and even the concept of points or representation dissolve into something utterly beyond comprehension.
In this state, the megastructure becomes both the ultimate question and the ultimate answer, both everything and nothing, both the absolute pinnacle of existence and the complete transcendence of existence itself. It stands as a
Really interesting. Thank you for trying it out. It matches the original post far more closely than it does my theory. (It goes all in on “mystic” instead of going all in on “conclusions”.)
So that strongly suggests my proposed explanation is wrong in some important way(s).
Seeing how no one tested this, I decided to do so myself. Here’s the pastebin with the experiment: https://pastebin.com/1j3edEvE
My prompts are enclosed in pairs of ‘*’. Claude initially wrote a reasonable essay, and then when asked to continue it came up with the different implications and challenges of building ever larger buildings, and tried to conclude each list but ran out of words when doing so. When asked to continue, it didn’t complete its conclusion but shifted to a new list of challenges and implications, and then tried to conclude. So I guess your prediction was wrong, but it’s hard to judge these things. Either way, eventually things got wild.
This is the start of the essay:
This is where the final “continue” pushed it:
Really interesting. Thank you for trying it out. It matches the original post far more closely than it does my theory. (It goes all in on “mystic” instead of going all in on “conclusions”.)
So that strongly suggests my proposed explanation is wrong in some important way(s).
Any ideas for a new explanation which fits the facts?