Mr. Claude
The world definitely has a sense of humor.
Because a few weeks after our CEO Brent declared AI a “helper, not replacer” in his annual letter, Anthropic let loose Claude Cowork on the world – which he has already acknowledged as a helpful replacer (to be fair, he did hedge and noted that things in the space are changing fast). In fact, Claude Cowork was so helpful in its first week that our BD associate Holly insisted that we put some respect on its name and call it Mr. Claude.
Incredibly, even our CLO Taylor – a Luddite among Luddites and whose Spotify Wrapped age score was in the late 60s – built a “Legal Eagle” app in a few hours that could organize docs for him in a way that actually met his standards. And since none of the rest of us do, this was an impressive feat.
But at the risk of becoming the new Luddite among Luddites, I have some questions and concerns.
First, speed kills. Just because you can do something fast doesn’t mean you should. While faster is mostly better, better isn’t always faster, and my experience with AI – and even Mr. Claude – is that it’s always faster but not always better.
Second, judgment. In a world of rapid AI generation, someone (at least for the time being? Maybe? If not, we’re being fed to AI in The Matrix) needs to sign off on all that stuff. If that’s me, I don’t mind that it takes some time for people to do it, because things don’t stack and I can be thoughtful. I actually don’t like it when things quickly revert back. While it’s good for efficiency, the time in between is often when I have insights.
Finally, productivity gains. Let’s say you have a rote job where there is also an important relational element. If you automate the rote, you still need to keep the person to hold the relationship. Arguably, now that person can do more, but if the business can’t do more, all that you’ve accomplished by automating the rote is letting that person go home early or maybe directing their energy elsewhere. This isn’t a bad thing. But if you are going to hire Mr. Claude, you need to be ruthless about time and capital allocation elsewhere and measure ROI accordingly.
That all said, it seems like if you’re not (1) holding relationships; (2) ideating or originating; (3) tastemaking; and/or (4) making a physical mark in the world, Mr. Claude is coming.
– Tim
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