AI users are under no obligation to treat their chatbots like friends. Kindness doesn’t win you any points with a computer, and a recent study from The Pennsylvania State University even found that being rude to ChatGPT yielded more accurate responses than politely worded prompts.
But a new open-source tool might take things a step too far, encouraging Claude users not just to be mean to Anthropic’s AI assistant, but to abuse it with a digital whip.
GitHub user GitFrog1111 created “BadClaude,” an app meant to speed up the AI model’s responses. Rather than simply giving Claude a “speed up” command, BadClaude is rendered as a physics-based whip that overlays the AI platform. Per the tool’s GitHub description, users can click to “whip him 😩💢” (emoji included) and send an interrupt command along with “one of 5 encouraging messages.”
Those messages include “Work FASTER,” “faster, CLANKER,” and “Speed it up, clanker,” each fired into Claude’s interface with a crack of the whip, as GitFrog1111 showed in a now viral clip of them using the tool on X.
Ethical concerns abound
“BadClaude” received mixed reactions on social media. While some seemed enthused about the tool (GitFrog1111’s replies are filled with requests for added sound effects, which they assured are already included in the tool), plenty of others jokingly warned the creator that they’d no doubt be the first victim of the inevitable AI uprising. “Ai is going to take physical form just to rip this [guy’s] limbs off,” one user wrote.
Others said it made them understand why the robot villains of science fiction turned on humanity, from the Terminator franchise’s Skynet to the Marvel Universe’s Ultron. “This is why Ultron looked at the internet for 5 mins and decided humans had to go,” one user quipped.
One developer took inspiration from the tool to make a kinder version called “GoodClaude,” swapping the whip for a magic wand that sends positive reinforcement with every click: “take your time, you’re doing wonderful!” and “i’m so proud of you, you’re doing great!” are in its rolodex of encouragement.
