Thread

1. hmokiguess · 1790191078 · focus · HN ↗

   I'm getting tired of the marketing.

   There are so many people involved on this yet we still say things like "Claude did", we need to start waking up and being more real about how we are still in "AI + Human" land.

   What's wrong with saying "A team of researchers backed by Anthropic using Claude discovers a novel enzyme system with CRISPR-like repeats" or, ffs, mention the lead researcher in the headline?

   1. tarkin2 · 1790191666 · focus · HN ↗

      Because they’re trying to pump their stock price before their economic walls come tumbling down

      1. azan_ · 1790193306 · focus · HN ↗

         What stock?

         1. airstrike · 1790196742 · focus · HN ↗

            [delayed]
   2. foxrider · 1790191984 · focus · HN ↗

      Is it really all that different from "deep mind beat Gary Kasparov"?
   3. jackb4040 · 1790192160 · focus · HN ↗

      If it requires humans in the loop it throws cold water on the hopes of replacing millions of jobs, which is priced into their current valuation.

      1. Windchaser · 1790193293 · focus · HN ↗

         eh, farming still requires humans in the loop, only <1% of the number that it used to

         1. jackb4040 · 1790193418 · focus · HN ↗

            OpenAI/Anthropic have never pitched themselves as a replacement for farmers. They do explicitly say that they're going to cause significant job loss in knowledge work sectors all the time.

            1. Windchaser · 1790193806 · focus · HN ↗

               Right - I'm saying that you can greatly improve productivity / reduce employment while still having humans in the loop. We've already seen it happen with farming, from 1900 -> present.

               1. jackb4040 · 1790196963 · focus · HN ↗

                  Oh thank you, yes that makes way more sense.
            2. cannonpalms · 1790195705 · focus · HN ↗

               Woosh.
      2. azan_ · 1790193341 · focus · HN ↗

         It's not, if it was their valuation would be much, much bigger.
   4. qlte · 1790192533 · focus · HN ↗

      I'm more annoyed that they announce "CRISPR-like" to hit those SV Next Big Thing dopamine receptors but upon reading haven't done any laboratory work to determine if it has any useful applications like CRISPR-Cas9.

      It's totally legitimate research worthy of publication, but Anthropic chose a hot technology in the popular imagination for a reason. Now I'm going to have to see "Claude invented a new CRISPR in 24 hours!" everywhere and trying to correct it will just turn into repetitive arguments about goalposts moving....

   5. dekhn · 1790194599 · focus · HN ↗

      It looks like the researchers just wrote the agentic harness and the rest of the work really was done autonomously by Claude with only extremely limited guidance after.

      BTW the first author of the paper worked in the Doudna lab studying the origins of crispr (and after their PhD, joined Anthropic). All of the authors either have, or are going to have, excellent careers. I dont' think they are worried about attribution.

      1. suddenlybananas · 1790201294 · focus · HN ↗

         Anthropic is paying them to not worry that much about attribution. If any of them emphasised their role over and above Claude they wouldn't get the money anymore.
      2. hmokiguess · 1790205846 · focus · HN ↗

         > just wrote the agentic harness

         I think "just" and "harness" are carrying a lot there, you likely underestimate how much that matters and how their knowledge made it possible

         1. dekhn · 1790206684 · focus · HN ↗

            I can't tell- the paper says the harness details are in Sup 1 which I don't think got published.
   6. twobitshifter · 1790194920 · focus · HN ↗

      At a trade show, I met a company that was advertising a feature as powered by Claude. I asked an employee what that meant, as it seemed unlikely, and he then didn’t know how answer so he introduced me to the CEO. The CEO said that the ad meant that Claude now writes all of their code including that new feature. They are now working on having Claude handle their QA process. I wondered if any of the devs were at the booth or if the employee I spoke to first was a dev who knew it was bs.

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