My friend Claude

Kevin Roose wrote an article about “How Claude Became Tech Insiders’ Chatbot of Choice”. I’m not a tech insider and was oblivious to Claude's cult-status, but it is my AI of choice and has been since I tried it well over a year ago. Let me explain why I accidentally joined the cult of “A.I. hipsters who want to brag about the obscure chatbot they’re into”.

OpenAI's ChatGPT is mainstream at this point, but Claude seems to be a little less known. Anthropic is the company behind Claude, a research and product company who place more focus on safety and ethics than OpenAI does.

In terms of features, Claude is currently not as advanced as ChatGPT. There is no voice mode talking back at you yet, nor does it browse the web. What makes it my preferred companion is first of all its quality of writing. When prompting ChatGPT to draft something or edit my writing, it always feels off. Claude on the other hand seems to get the nuances of language much better.

The other reason is tone of voice. I find ChatGPT too eager to please, too complimentary. I do not want to work with a human who tries to suck up to me at every opportunity and this aversion extends to chatbots. Apparently it has recently started calling people "love" now too?

Meanwhile, Claude is just kind of chill. It generally responds to me like a friendly and supportive professional, who wants to help but doesn't get clingy about it.

Use case: The editor who's always on call

For my own writing, like posts for this blog, I use Claude as an editor. While the final text matters, clarifying my thoughts through writing is equally important. (Hot take: If we all outsource the entire process, AI might outsmart us by us simply becoming dumber.)

I also want to develop my own voice with what feels fun and interesting to me. Giving Claude my current voice and ask it to create things in my tone would keep me sounding the same, and that’s not what I want. 

This is usually how the process goes:

• I write my own first draft, and likely a second and a third draft too.
• I paste the whole thing into my dedicated creative writing project, where I already have guidelines on how I want Claude to review my writing.
• I include context of what I want to achieve with the piece, intended audience, and any other relevant information, and what I want feedback on. Generally, grammar, language, tone of voice, fluency. 
• I get feedback and engage in a conversation. Sometimes I agree, sometimes not, sometimes I push back or ask it to clarify, or provide more context. And sometimes I just ignore it all together and do as I please.

Titles is another thing I often ask for help with. Most of my titles these days are a combination of me and Claude. It’s like having a full-time editor to work with instantly on anything I write. And that is pretty encouraging!

Use case: The first-draft companion

When writing for clients, I might approach it differently. Most companies have a clear style guide for their content and tone of voice so this is the context I provide in the project.

• If I want to create an article I often give a few examples, put in all the info I have, and prompt it to give me a first draft. This is my starting point, something to get me moving.
• If it's a straightforward piece and already close to the result I wanted, I do the final tweaks myself.
• More common, I identify what does not work in Claude's version, and I give it feedback. We have a dialogue and go back and forth.

Use case: The 3am sounding board

When I have an idea I want to explore, Claude is my first destination. Not because it has all the answers – but it can ask questions and help me get moving. I dump all the context and my vague questions as I would do to a friend, and it reflects back, giving me statement I might agree or disagree with.

My friends are spread out over the world in different timezones, and surprisingly, don't always feel like talking about my latest nerdy idea, so being able to vet it myself probably helps my relationships too. 😌

In summary, I talk to Claude the way I would to a colleague I'm working with, it helps me by being available and in many cases, lowering the barrier to entry.

Among my friends I have both AI skeptics and AI fanatics. Would love to hear more about how you use and think about AI, specifically for writing – send me a message or drop a comment!