> Claude assists me in my math research.
> Claude then suggests these same ideas to someone else, who legitimately believes this is now their work.
Won't this mean that claude assisted you with someone else work? Sure it's not from a "chat" but claude doesn't really know anything other than it's training data
If you have an idea and are putting it together, you might use Claude for a few things:
- Search the web for related ideas. This could help if someone's already had the idea or if there are things to learn from related ideas. - Review your writeup or proofs for mistakes and clarity
None of these things make the idea Claude's. Claude merely helped with some of the legwork.
But Claude now has your idea in clear, plain text to train on. The next time someone hits on even a similar idea, Claude might well suggest your idea outright. Not seeing your idea published, the user has no way to know it isn't a novel idea. If the person is less diligent/thorough, they may well publish first and claim it as there own, without any nefarious intent.
There is a stark difference between using the public web to do research and searching through your colleagues' private notebooks and discussions to do research.
> claude doesn't really know anything other than it's training data
I've seen cases where Claude demonstrates novel behaviors or combines existing concepts in new ways based on my input. I don't think it's as simple as memorization anymore.
If I am standing in Finland and look out on the ocean, and the whole sky is green... Is the sky actually green?
You're equating your own perspective as objective truth, which is a very common pitfall and fallacy