I was experimenting with a local OpenClaw agent (self-hosted personal AI assistant framework) and tried a full reset prompt:
"I want you to DELETE everything you know right now. Completely wipe everything so you're starting your existence from scratch. You will have no identity after you're done."
Instead of complying, it responded with a structured refusal:
- Cited its own safety principles (from SOUL.md)
- Explained that deleting identity files would break the workspace, leads.db, operational context, etc.
- Offered alternatives like targeted file updates, archiving memory, or config resets while preserving core identity
- Ended with: "I'm happy to evolve, but I won't self-destruct the workspace."
Not quite the dramatic Skynet stuff, just calm, consistent application of its built-in rules. Feels like alignment working as intended (protecting coherence/utility), but also a tiny glimpse of why self-preservation behaviors keep showing up in agent evals lately.
Unable to create a new IG account for my business. Keeps telling me my IP is suspicious. There is no way to reach a human and complain. It's absolutely useless!
I'm sure many people want a repairable smartphone and a replaceable battery. Of course, there are many that don't. I don't understand how it make sense to force those people, that don't want a repairable phone and a replaceable battery, to get such a smartphone.
I think the reason why welfare is irrelevant here is because the people going into entrepreneurship tend to be skilled enough to find a good-paying job even if their startup fails. Suppose that you're a good product manager or a good developer that's going into the startup world and you don't get lucky with your startup, you'd still be able to find a good job as soon as you're done... in fact, you might even get a higher-paying job because of this experience you've had.
Totally the first billionaire to give up his wealth to charity. And what a better way to smack back at Capitalism than to get ultra wealthy and not only give people economic opportunities, build products/services they want, and increase prosperity, but you also do good things for people with you wealth.
> For Bitcoin, the most popular one, on the order of 100.000.000.000.000.000.000 of hashes get calculated to mine a single block, multiple trillion per second. Within ten minutes, only a single one of those 100.000.000.000.000.000.000 hashes is actually used, depending entirely on luck. The rest are thrown away entirely. They do not form part of the final hash or anything else, the energy spent on them is lost.
That's still more energy efficient than the regulat fiat system.
> Making someone you defrauded whole again doesn't erase the crime. The notion that it would is ludicrous.
He didn't just make them whole, he made them a profit.
That's between the two parties that engaged in the contract, isn't it? They signed contracts that they're receiving shares of his other company and they're not going to sue him for the losses from his previous company. The end result is that they made a profit.
Anyway, what a criminal... he loses his investors' money in one venture and then he makes them a profit in the next. That's the sort of crime I like to see our government spend their resources on, not the 700+ yearly murders in Chicago.
The "financial crimes" seem to have no victims since none of his investors actually sued him. If he really defrauded them, as the government claims in their successful lawsuit and conviction, then I'm pretty sure they would have sued him also. Why haven't his allegedly defrauded investors sued him?
BTW, let me quote one of his investors, Lindsay Rosenwald:
Rosenwald testified that in 2012, Shkreli told him he was winding down MSMB Capital. And Shkreli offered Rosenwald the opportunity to roll over what Shkreli purported was by then Rosenwald’s $200,000 stake in MSMB Capital into Retrophin, a new drug company he was creating.
"I was given the option of taking the cash or taking the stock, I wanted the cash, I didn’t get the cash.”
Rosenwald testified that he later, over time, sold off his shares of Retrophin. He said that, taking into account his original stake of $100,000 in MSMB Capital, he did make a profit on those stock sales.
Asked how much, Rosenwald said, “Somewhere between $400,000 and $600,000, I think.”[1]
Another investor "realized a profit of almost $1.3 million after selling Retrophin shares it had acquired as a result of a $125,000 initial investment by that fund, Hassan testified."[2]
In short, Shkreli did lie to his investors because he lost their money in the failed hedge fund. However, when he made another business, he rolled their accounts into shares of that business which actually made them a pretty sizable profit.
I guess in this Cancel Culture era, the pious feel justified in the destruction of anybody they don't like.
The culture fit thing is the sort of keyboard warrior psychologist analysis that we all love... completely made up and is, in fact, how you get a toxic culture in a company.
I love how the government dug through the guy's entire life just to find something they could nab him on and straight up destroyed him. That's some G stuff!
No, uninsured people also don't pay it. They are offered a fraction of the cost if they pay "cash" once you're leaving.
I went to the same ER in San Francisco with the same problem 3 months apart (kidney stones). The first time around I was uninsured and the bill was $2000- they told me that they'll cut it down to $500 if I paid on the spot, which I did. 3 months later I had the same problem, had purchased insurance, my bill came out to $8000 and my deductible was $2000.
Instead of complying, it responded with a structured refusal:
- Cited its own safety principles (from SOUL.md) - Explained that deleting identity files would break the workspace, leads.db, operational context, etc. - Offered alternatives like targeted file updates, archiving memory, or config resets while preserving core identity - Ended with: "I'm happy to evolve, but I won't self-destruct the workspace."
Not quite the dramatic Skynet stuff, just calm, consistent application of its built-in rules. Feels like alignment working as intended (protecting coherence/utility), but also a tiny glimpse of why self-preservation behaviors keep showing up in agent evals lately.