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I'm still not sure I understand Anthropic's general strategy right now. They are doing these broad marketing programs trying to take on ChatGPT for "normies".

I'm still not sure I understand Anthropic's general strategy right now. They are doing these broad marketing programs trying to take on ChatGPT for "normies". And yet their bread and butter is still clearly coding. Meanwhile, Claude's general use cases are... fine. For generic research topics, I find that ChatGPT and Gemini run circles around it: in the depth of research, the type of tasks it can handle, and the quality and presentation of the responses. Anthropic is also doing all of these goofy things to try to establish the "humanity" of their chatbot - giving it rights and a constitution and all that. Yet it weirdly feels the most transactional out of all of them. Don't get me wrong, I'm a paying Claude customer and love what it's good at. I just think there's a disconnect between what Claude is and what their marketing department thinks it is.

tgtweak 9mo ago
Claude itself (outside of code workflows) actually works very well for general purpose chat. I have a few non-technical friends that have moved over from chatgpt after some side-by-side testing and I've yet to see one go back - which is good since claude circa 8 months ago was borderline unusable for anything but coding on the api.
- pattar 9mo ago
  I got my partner using claude for her non technical work. They write a lot of proposals, creates spreadsheets, and occasionally wants some graphs to visualize things. They love that claude creates all of the artifacts right there in the browser and saves them for later in a versioned way.
eaf7e281 9mo ago
I kinda agree. Their model just doesn't feel "daily" enough. I would use it for any "agentic" tasks and for using tools, but definitely not for day to day questions.
- lukebechtel 9mo ago
  Why? I use it for all and love it. That doesn't mean you have to, but I'm curious why you think it's behind in the personal assistant game.
  - legitster 9mo ago
    I have three specific use cases where I try both but ChatGPT wins: - Recipes and cooking: ChatGPT just has way more detailed and practical advice. It also thinks outside of the box much more, whereas Claude gets stuck in a rut and sticks very closely to your prompt. And ChatGPT's easier to understand/skim writing style really comes in useful. - Travel and itinerary: Again, ChatGPT can anticipate details much more, and give more unique suggestions. I am much more likely to find hidden gems or get good time-savers than Claude, which often feels like it is just rereading Yelp for you. - Historical research: ChatGPT wins on this by a mile. You can tell ChatGPT has been trained on actual historical texts and physical books. You can track long historical trends, pull examples and quotes, and even give you specific book or page(!) references of where to check the sources. Meanwhile, all Claude will give you is a web search on the topic.
    - aggie 9mo ago
      How does #3 square with Anthropic's literal warehouse full of books we've seen from the copyright case? Did OpenAI scan more books? Or did they take a shadier route of training on digital books despite copyright issues, but end up with a deeper library?
      - rolisz 9mo ago
        I think they bought the books after they were caught that they pirated the books and lost that case (because they pirated, not because of copyright).
      - legitster 9mo ago
        I have no idea, but I suspect there's a difference between using books to train an LLM and be able to reproduce text/writing styles, and being able to actually recall knowledge in said books.
Squarex 9mo ago
Claude sucks at non English languages. Gemini and ChatGPT are much better. Grok is the worst. I am a native Czech speaker and Claude makes up words and Grok sometimes respond in Russian. So while I love it for coding, it’s unusable for general purpose for me.
- 9dev 9mo ago
  > Grok sometimes respond in Russian Geopolitically speaking this is hilarious.
  - Squarex 9mo ago
    The voice mode sounded like a Ukrainian trying to speak Czech. I don’t think it means anything.
- kuboble 9mo ago
  Claude code (opus) is very good in Polish. I sometimes vibe code in polish and it's as good as with English for me. It speaks a natural, native level Polish. I used opus to translate thousands of strings in my app into polish, Korean, and two Chinese dialects. Polish one is great, and the other are also good according to my customers.
  - altern8 9mo ago
    Your game is amazing! I wish there was a "Reset" button to go back to the original position. Where are you in Poland?
    - kuboble 9mo ago
      Thanks :) Click "Level" -> "Try again" Originally from Wrocław, but don't live in Poland anymore
      - altern8 9mo ago
        Ah, I'm originally from Italy and living in Wroclaw now, LOL. BUT, I meant a button to restart after a few moves. Anyways, cool!
derwiki 9mo ago
It feels very similar to how Lyft positioned themselves against Uber. (And we know how that played out)
redox99 9mo ago
Why would I even use Claude for asking something on their web, considering that chips away my claude code usage limit? Their limit system is so bad.
dimgl 9mo ago
I don't get what's so difficult to understand. They have ambitions beyond just coding. And Claude is generally a good LLM. Even beyond just the coding applications.
bobbylarrybobby 9mo ago
I really like that Claude feels transactional. It answers my question quickly and concisely and then shuts up. I don't need the LLM I use to act like my best friend.
- andkenneth 9mo ago
  Weirdly I feel like partially because of this it feels more "human" and more like a real person I'm talking to. GPT models feel fake and forced, and will yap in a way that is like they're trying to get to be my friend, but offputting in a way that makes it not work. Meanwhile claude has always had better "emotional intelligence". Claude also seems a lot better at picking up what's going on. If you're focused on tasks, then yeah, it's going to know you want quick answers rather than detailed essays. Could be part of it.
- cryptoegorophy 9mo ago
  Then why are they advertising to people that are complete opposite of you? Why couldn’t they just … ask LLM what their target audience is?
- apples_oranges 9mo ago
  fyi in settings, you can configure chatGPT to do the same
  - matkoniecz 9mo ago
    where?
    - maxbond 9mo ago
      Settings > Personalization > Custom Instructions. Here's what I use: WE ARE PROFESSIONALS. DO NOT FLATTER ME. BE BLUNT AND FORTHRIGHT.
- tsss 9mo ago
  Quickly and concisely? In my experience, Claude drivels on and on forever. The answers are always far longer than Gemini's, which is mostly fine for coding but annoying for planning/questions.
fnordpiglet 9mo ago
Enterprise, government, and regulated institutions. It’s also defacto standard for programming assistants at most places. They have a better story around compliance, alignment, task based inference, agentic workflows, etc. Their retail story is meh, but I think their view is to be the aws of LLMs while OpenAI can be the retail and Gemini the whatever Google does with products.
dev1ycan 9mo ago
Their "constitution" is just garbage meant to defend them ripping off copyrighted material with the excuse that "it's not plagiarizing, it thinks!!!!1" which is, false.
- handoflixue 9mo ago
  I don't recall them ever offering that legal reasoning - I'm sure you can provide a citation?
  - dev1ycan 9mo ago
    Did using LLMs too much remove your ability to critically think too?
    - handoflixue 9mo ago
      Just to be clear: you're mad because your "critical thinking" led you to a spurious argument that you disagree with, and that they never actually made? You explicitly said: "the excuse that "it's not plagiarizing, it thinks!!!!1"", and it seems rather relevant that they've never actually used that excuse.
int_19h 9mo ago
I suspect it very much depends on the "generic research topics", but in my experience one thing that Claude is good at is in-depth research because it can keep going for such a long time; I've had research sessions go well over an hour, producing very detailed reports with lots of sources etc. Gemini Deep Research is nowhere even close.
zaphirplane 9mo ago
Correct me if I’m wrong aren’t they the innovators of multiple things like skills sub agents mcp and whatever this memory thing is agents files Seriously they are the apple iPhone or AWS of LLM a decade or so ago.
faxmeyourcode 9mo ago
Everybody is different, I simply cannot stand the sight of chatgpt styled writing. Give me paragraphs.

tgtweak 9mo ago

Claude itself (outside of code workflows) actually works very well for general purpose chat. I have a few non-technical friends that have moved over from chatgpt after some side-by-side testing and I've yet to see one go back - which is good since claude circa 8 months ago was borderline unusable for anything but coding on the api.

pattar 9mo ago
I got my partner using claude for her non technical work. They write a lot of proposals, creates spreadsheets, and occasionally wants some graphs to visualize things. They love that claude creates all of the artifacts right there in the browser and saves them for later in a versioned way.

eaf7e281 9mo ago

I kinda agree. Their model just doesn't feel "daily" enough. I would use it for any "agentic" tasks and for using tools, but definitely not for day to day questions.

lukebechtel 9mo ago
Why? I use it for all and love it. That doesn't mean you have to, but I'm curious why you think it's behind in the personal assistant game.
- legitster 9mo ago
  I have three specific use cases where I try both but ChatGPT wins: - Recipes and cooking: ChatGPT just has way more detailed and practical advice. It also thinks outside of the box much more, whereas Claude gets stuck in a rut and sticks very closely to your prompt. And ChatGPT's easier to understand/skim writing style really comes in useful. - Travel and itinerary: Again, ChatGPT can anticipate details much more, and give more unique suggestions. I am much more likely to find hidden gems or get good time-savers than Claude, which often feels like it is just rereading Yelp for you. - Historical research: ChatGPT wins on this by a mile. You can tell ChatGPT has been trained on actual historical texts and physical books. You can track long historical trends, pull examples and quotes, and even give you specific book or page(!) references of where to check the sources. Meanwhile, all Claude will give you is a web search on the topic.
  - aggie 9mo ago
    How does #3 square with Anthropic's literal warehouse full of books we've seen from the copyright case? Did OpenAI scan more books? Or did they take a shadier route of training on digital books despite copyright issues, but end up with a deeper library?
    - rolisz 9mo ago
      I think they bought the books after they were caught that they pirated the books and lost that case (because they pirated, not because of copyright).
    - legitster 9mo ago
      I have no idea, but I suspect there's a difference between using books to train an LLM and be able to reproduce text/writing styles, and being able to actually recall knowledge in said books.

Squarex 9mo ago

Claude sucks at non English languages. Gemini and ChatGPT are much better. Grok is the worst. I am a native Czech speaker and Claude makes up words and Grok sometimes respond in Russian. So while I love it for coding, it’s unusable for general purpose for me.

9dev 9mo ago
> Grok sometimes respond in Russian Geopolitically speaking this is hilarious.
- Squarex 9mo ago
  The voice mode sounded like a Ukrainian trying to speak Czech. I don’t think it means anything.
kuboble 9mo ago
Claude code (opus) is very good in Polish. I sometimes vibe code in polish and it's as good as with English for me. It speaks a natural, native level Polish. I used opus to translate thousands of strings in my app into polish, Korean, and two Chinese dialects. Polish one is great, and the other are also good according to my customers.
- altern8 9mo ago
  Your game is amazing! I wish there was a "Reset" button to go back to the original position. Where are you in Poland?
  - kuboble 9mo ago
    Thanks :) Click "Level" -> "Try again" Originally from Wrocław, but don't live in Poland anymore
    - altern8 9mo ago
      Ah, I'm originally from Italy and living in Wroclaw now, LOL. BUT, I meant a button to restart after a few moves. Anyways, cool!

derwiki 9mo ago

It feels very similar to how Lyft positioned themselves against Uber. (And we know how that played out)

redox99 9mo ago

Why would I even use Claude for asking something on their web, considering that chips away my claude code usage limit? Their limit system is so bad.

dimgl 9mo ago

I don't get what's so difficult to understand. They have ambitions beyond just coding. And Claude is generally a good LLM. Even beyond just the coding applications.

bobbylarrybobby 9mo ago

I really like that Claude feels transactional. It answers my question quickly and concisely and then shuts up. I don't need the LLM I use to act like my best friend.

andkenneth 9mo ago
Weirdly I feel like partially because of this it feels more "human" and more like a real person I'm talking to. GPT models feel fake and forced, and will yap in a way that is like they're trying to get to be my friend, but offputting in a way that makes it not work. Meanwhile claude has always had better "emotional intelligence". Claude also seems a lot better at picking up what's going on. If you're focused on tasks, then yeah, it's going to know you want quick answers rather than detailed essays. Could be part of it.
cryptoegorophy 9mo ago
Then why are they advertising to people that are complete opposite of you? Why couldn’t they just … ask LLM what their target audience is?
apples_oranges 9mo ago
fyi in settings, you can configure chatGPT to do the same
- matkoniecz 9mo ago
  where?
  - maxbond 9mo ago
    Settings > Personalization > Custom Instructions. Here's what I use: WE ARE PROFESSIONALS. DO NOT FLATTER ME. BE BLUNT AND FORTHRIGHT.
tsss 9mo ago
Quickly and concisely? In my experience, Claude drivels on and on forever. The answers are always far longer than Gemini's, which is mostly fine for coding but annoying for planning/questions.

fnordpiglet 9mo ago

Enterprise, government, and regulated institutions. It’s also defacto standard for programming assistants at most places. They have a better story around compliance, alignment, task based inference, agentic workflows, etc. Their retail story is meh, but I think their view is to be the aws of LLMs while OpenAI can be the retail and Gemini the whatever Google does with products.

dev1ycan 9mo ago

Their "constitution" is just garbage meant to defend them ripping off copyrighted material with the excuse that "it's not plagiarizing, it thinks!!!!1" which is, false.

handoflixue 9mo ago
I don't recall them ever offering that legal reasoning - I'm sure you can provide a citation?
- dev1ycan 9mo ago
  Did using LLMs too much remove your ability to critically think too?
  - handoflixue 9mo ago
    Just to be clear: you're mad because your "critical thinking" led you to a spurious argument that you disagree with, and that they never actually made? You explicitly said: "the excuse that "it's not plagiarizing, it thinks!!!!1"", and it seems rather relevant that they've never actually used that excuse.

int_19h 9mo ago

I suspect it very much depends on the "generic research topics", but in my experience one thing that Claude is good at is in-depth research because it can keep going for such a long time; I've had research sessions go well over an hour, producing very detailed reports with lots of sources etc. Gemini Deep Research is nowhere even close.

zaphirplane 9mo ago

Correct me if I’m wrong aren’t they the innovators of multiple things like skills sub agents mcp and whatever this memory thing is agents files Seriously they are the apple iPhone or AWS of LLM a decade or so ago.

faxmeyourcode 9mo ago

Everybody is different, I simply cannot stand the sight of chatgpt styled writing. Give me paragraphs.