Claude for dummies: 101 on the new AI platform that might challenge ChatGPT

AI models have been popping up everywhere as the AI boom continues to grow in scale. Companies are racing each other to create better models with greater usability and less errors and bias'. 

This is especially because it was found in a recent survey that 70% of Singaporean consumers, compared to 73% of consumers globally, trust content created by generative AI. This spans across many aspects of life, from financial planning and medical diagnosis to even relationship advice.

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It was also found that 70% of consumers globally use generative AI tools to seek recommendations for new products and services and that 65% of Singaporean consumers, compared to 64% globally, are open to making purchases based on these recommendations.

These were the results of Capgemini Research Institute’s latest report titled ‘Why consumers love generative AI’, which explores how consumers globally are using generative AI applications and how it could be the key to accelerating society’s digital future.

With how strongly consumers put their faith in AI responses, it is critical that platforms provide accurate and bias-free responses. 

Enter Claude which entered the scene in March last year and which started to gain popularity this year. 

Never heard of Claude? MARKETING-INTERACTIVE breaks it down for you right here as well as why it might be a safer platform and better for marketers. 

What is Claude?

Claude is a family of foundational AI models that can be used in a variety of applications. It can help you brainstorm ideas, analyse images or process long documents using claude.ai. 

The system can perform complex cognitive tasks that go beyond simple pattern recognition or text generation.

It can also transcribe and analyse almost any static image, from handwritten notes and graphs, to photographs, create websites in HTML and CSS and translate between various languages in real-time.

"Think of Claude as a friendly, enthusiastic colleague or personal assistant who can be instructed in natural language to help you with many tasks," said Anthropic, the AI safety and research company that created it. 

How is Claude trained?

Claude is trained by constitutional AI. Constitutional AI provides one answer by giving language models explicit values determined by a constitution, rather than values determined implicitly via large-scale human feedback, according to Anthropic.

"This isn’t a perfect approach, but it does make the values of the AI system easier to understand and easier to adjust as needed," it said. 

Previously, human feedback on model outputs determined the principles and values that guided model behavior. "For us, this involved having human contractors compare two responses from a model and select the one they felt was better according to some principle," it said. 

This process has several shortcomings. First, it may require people to interact with disturbing outputs. Second, it does not scale efficiently, it explained. 

Constitutional AI responds to these shortcomings by using AI feedback to evaluate outputs.

The system uses a set of principles to make judgments about outputs. At a high level, the constitution guides the model to take on the normative behaviour described in the constitution – here, helping to avoid toxic or discriminatory outputs, avoiding helping a human engage in illegal or unethical activities, and broadly creating an AI system that is helpful, honest, and harmless, it said. 

Is Claude error-proof?

Like all AI models out there, Claude may occasionally generate incorrect or misleading information, or produce offensive or biased content, according to Anthropic.

In fact, it states explicitly that Claude is not intended to give advice, including legal, financial and medical advice.

"Don’t rely on our conversation alone without doing your own independent research," it says. 

Could Claude overtake ChatGPT?

While Claude is certainly interesting, the real question is if it can overtake other, more established and well-known platforms such as ChatrGPT, Gemini and more. 

For starters, the AI assistant created by Anthropic focuses its core research on training Claude to be helpful, honest, and harmless through Constitutional AI, said Melissa Yik, Singapore country director at M&C Saatchi Performance. 

"This comes amidst rising concerns regarding accuracy and bias of existing Generative AI models, which despite having the potential to be a trillion-dollar industry, has it fair share of critics and limitations," she said. "Claude is trained to avoid sexist, racist and toxic outputs, and adhere to human values which is aimed at addressing some of the key concerns other models are facing today," she said. 

Yik added that with Constitutional AI, Claude uses a set of ethical and behavioral principles to guide its output rather than learning and inheriting values from collective writing of humans across the world which might produce discriminatory responses, issues that other models are facing.

"However, no model is perfect and users will have to exercise human expertise and oversight across any AI tools," she said. 

Siddharth Jhanji, senior manager (domain leader), data architecture and engineering at Ekimetrics though, was of a differing view and noted that Claude's constitutional AI training is a step in the right direction. He said:

This training ensures Claude is more than just a tool. It’s a trusted advisor that aligns with your brand’s values and ethics.

How can Claude help marketers?

With its training, Claude has significant potential in the markting space. According to Jhanji, Claude is like having a "virtual Da Vinchi" on your team. 

"With its ability to juggle text and images like a seasoned artist, Claude brings a creative revolution to your marketing campaigns. Picture this: a campaign that not only reads well but also visually captivates your audience, all thanks to Claude’s multimodal prowess," he said. 

Claude is like having a "Swiss Army knife" in your marketing toolkit, he added. "Need a stunning visual for your next ad? Check. A deep dive into consumer behavior? You got it. Real-time customer service that feels genuinely human? Claude’s on it. It’s the ultimate sidekick for marketers aiming for the stars," said Jhanji.

He added that in the world of AI, it's not just about being smart but rather, it is about being the smartest. 

"Claude, with its encyclopedic knowledge and Picasso-like vision, is sprinting up the ladder. While ChatGPT and Gemini are like seasoned chess players, Claude is the dynamic newcomer shaking up the game with moves no one saw coming," said Jhanji.

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