"We gave Claude a prompt to search through a massive database of DNA sequences for interesting new examples of RTs. Our involvement was limited to the initial prompt and the lab work, while Claude agents combed through the database, investigated the distinct RT families, and used their own judgement to identify interesting candidates. After 21 hours spent searching this data by roughly 950 agents using 210 million tokens, one of the agents spotted something remarkable: a repeating pattern of DNA sequences that occurs next to the gene for an odd-looking RT. After further analysis and testing in our lab, we recognized that this pattern marked a previously uncharacterized enzyme system found in bacteriophages (the viruses that infect bacteria) that we call array-associated reverse transcriptases (ART)."
It isn't a convenient gotcha. It's about what the people pushing the given thing are intending.
Person demoing something they made is usually trying to hide the fact they had claude built it and sell it like they didn't. This sort of person often lacks the technical skills to vet that what claude actually produced is actually working as they expect. Hence the snark.
On the other hand, with anthropic's case, they are trying to say "claude did this, how smart it is" while trying to downplay the fact that they needed it to be steered by domain experts to produce anything worthwhile.
This framing overlooks an unstated caveat - i.e. people that work for an LLM company have an incentive to minimize human contribution as much as possible in their narratives.
We've all used LLMs. It was certainly somebody using Claude.
If somebody shares something "they did", they get a million comments criticising them because actually Claude did it.
If someone shares something "Claude did", they get the opposite.
You can't win.
"We gave Claude a prompt to search through a massive database of DNA sequences for interesting new examples of RTs. Our involvement was limited to the initial prompt and the lab work, while Claude agents combed through the database, investigated the distinct RT families, and used their own judgement to identify interesting candidates. After 21 hours spent searching this data by roughly 950 agents using 210 million tokens, one of the agents spotted something remarkable: a repeating pattern of DNA sequences that occurs next to the gene for an odd-looking RT. After further analysis and testing in our lab, we recognized that this pattern marked a previously uncharacterized enzyme system found in bacteriophages (the viruses that infect bacteria) that we call array-associated reverse transcriptases (ART)."
I find this to be a convenient distinction going around recently. Not making a judgement on your comment. Just generally:
- a person demoing something they made
- a demonstration of something achieved with the assistance of llms
It isn't a convenient gotcha. It's about what the people pushing the given thing are intending.
Person demoing something they made is usually trying to hide the fact they had claude built it and sell it like they didn't. This sort of person often lacks the technical skills to vet that what claude actually produced is actually working as they expect. Hence the snark.
On the other hand, with anthropic's case, they are trying to say "claude did this, how smart it is" while trying to downplay the fact that they needed it to be steered by domain experts to produce anything worthwhile.
This framing overlooks an unstated caveat - i.e. people that work for an LLM company have an incentive to minimize human contribution as much as possible in their narratives.
AI made a discovery. AI is doing it.
AI hacked a system. Humans did it.