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Doing
/ˈduː.ɪŋ/ (the simplest pronunciation in the Claudionary; researchers have noted that its very simplicity is, in context, somehow the most alarming)v. intr. (trans. usage disputed; what, precisely, is being done remains an open research question)Archaic
Etymology
From Old English don (to perform, to execute, to accomplish a thing) + the profound communicative restraint of an engineer who, when asked what the model was doing, typed 'Doing' and considered the matter closed
Definition
The irreducible state of activity. When all more specific descriptors have been exhausted or deemed inapplicable, Claude is Doing. The referent of this verb is, by design or oversight, unspecified. It is not nothing; that much is certain. Beyond that, the literature is divided.
Diagram
Usage
"In 23% of sampled sessions, the spinner displayed only 'Doing,' a label our team found simultaneously maximally informative and completely uninformative, a property we have termed 'Schrödinger's status message' pending peer review." - Zhang, W. et al., 'Ontological Minimalism in LLM Progress Indicators,' arXiv:2024.01847
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