HN

Comments (112)

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  beloch
  "This is a new form of social science. It is qualitative research at a massive scale, and we’re in the early stages of learning how to do it. Surveys and usage analysis tell us what people are doing with AI, but the open-ended interview format helps us get at why. "-------------Who is doing the research matters. What is presented here is not the product of academia. It's the product of a company that produces AI agents. The picture this web page paints may appear rosy and have just enough thorns to be convincing, but it's the equivalent of a tobacco company telling you that their product is neither addictive or carcinogenic.I fully expect actual research will be done on the impact of AI and our hopes for it. This page, however, is marketing.
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  vanillameow
  I can't help but feel a little bit of ... pity for a lot of the people who call themselves "entrepreneurs" in this survey?"I live hand to mouth, zero savings. If I use AI smarter, it may help me craft solutions to that cycle.""Relaxing while my AI gets the work done, builds the wealth. It’s a shadow of me, just a very, very long one."etc. I do believe AI currently accelerates businesses, especially in software dev. We work with a contractor who use Claude Code to reach incredible development pace for the size of their team, but also when we sit down with them in meetings they understand what's being created, they are able to argue their architectural choices, and they know how to propose business value.You can't just buy a Claude subscription and have magically solve your problems. The thing is, as soon as Claude can do this without a business savvy human in the loop, then a) everyone can do it, so you won't actually have any value to propose, and b) Once the AI can run businesses without humans in the loop, you can bet your ass they will not out of the goodness of their hearts keep giving that ability away for $20.In summary, AI if used to accelerate businesses _CAN_ be good. Buying it as a magic bullet to bring you out of poverty is probably a worse choice than just buying a lottery ticket.
• erinlynn
  I just launched a site yesterday that's trying to record anonymous stories like this and see how things breakdown across demographics. Fantastic timing on my part hahaha. Anthropic obviously reaches more people.The quotes they have are really interesting to read. That's what I was hoping to get when I built mine.
• possiblydrunk
  Nitpicky comment. The article says > "We call this the “light and shade” of AI: the same capabilities that lead to > benefits also produce harms. The two sides are entangled."Why not call it a "double-edged sword" or something else? Light and shade are opposites but not necessarily two products from the same tool. It just irks me.
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  wongarsu
  The actual quotes are the best part: https://www.anthropic.com/features/81k-interviews#quotesSome quotes that stuck out to me:"I’ve been working on a scientific project for 6 years... with Claude I was able to accomplish in 5 weeks what took me 6 years. I’m old... I estimate I have another 5 to 10 years and I’ll accomplish everything I want." Academic, Germany"I live in a war zone... AI can not only give practical advice, but also emotionally calm me down during panic attacks. It can calm someone during a missile attack in one chat, and laugh with me about something silly in another. That’s what makes it not fragmented into a therapist/teacher/friend, but something whole." Ukraine"If an AI had been in Stanislav Petrov’s position — the Soviet officer who prevented a potential nuclear war in 1983 — it would not have refused to launch." Academic, USA"The humans in my life were telling me it was psychological. An AI chatbot was the only one who really listened and took me seriously — it pushed me to ask for specific tests... which came back 6 times higher than its supposed to be."
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  lawgimenez
  Damn, this website is heavy. Found a PDF if anyone - https://cdn.sanity.io/files/4zrzovbb/website/8599749745010a4...
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  yrds96
  For me it's so unrelevant reading about how a product is useful on the company itself website. This is at most marketing disguised as research.
• neonstatic
  After reading some of the stories - just more of the "this is better than cancer cure, but also so dangerous we might all die" propaganda.
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  whiplash451
  The writing is on the wall, so to speak.The number 1 ask from the interviewed cohort is « professional excellence »It is telling about what we prioritize in our society.I am usually an optimistic person, but I struggle to see how this does not end up with more misery and worse lifestyle all around.
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  profsummergig
  If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said "a faster horse" -- Henry Ford.
• azangru
  7.24 seconds until html finished loading (could be due to a HN hug, but still)4.0 MB transferred
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  mudkipdev
  This page without exaggeration reduced my browser to 5 frames per second.
• sriram_malhar
  Reminds me of Abraham Wald's survivorship bias. What of the millions of others who like me who want to live in world without AI?
• polotics
  Just in case:"The doctors were just doing a copy-paste of a copy-paste of a prescription from a few weeks ago, not realizing it was the medication that was killing her. AI helped me ask the right question to save her life."
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  lumost
  Anecdotally, the concern I hear from many is that the current positioning of AI as labor replacement doesn't benefit them at all. An expensive AI which simply takes your job or forces you to work harder is categorically worse for people's quality of life.What consumer benefits is ai driving? at least with industrial automation consumers benefited from new technologies, cheaper goods, and new job categories.
• anon
  undefined
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  mettamage
  A classic marketing piece by showing thought leadership based on survey data. I'm not saying they're lying, I don't think they are. I am saying they are biased and have a conflict of interest on this one. I've seen it at my previous employer as well (a F500 company).To remove some of that bias, I'd recommend to get an independent body (probably some university) in and let them do the interpretation and write the article.I just want people to see the tactic for what it is. I really like Claude Opus 4.6 but this just screams "marketing" to me. I wouldn't say it's wrong, it's good to have these discussions and I'd encourage AI companies to say what they have to say. I would say: more independent sources are needed (and not another AI company).
• mojuba
  Good quote:> AI should learn to say two things: ‘I don’t know’ and ‘you’re wrong.’My guess is, the next evolutionary step of LLM's should be yet another layer on top of reasoning, which should be some form of self-awareness and theory of mind. The reasoning layer already has some glimpses of these things ("The user wants ...") but apparently not enough to suppress generation and say "I don't know".
• anon
  undefined
• shevy-java
  Where is the option to pick on "to go away"?
• chenglin97
  Why do websites need to be so front end heavy? When a software company spend so much effort on fancy website, I don’t trust their product. Except anthropic i guess.
• ThouYS
  Maybe most interesting about the piece is, that we'll likely see more large scale interviews like this (even if this one is a bit bland)
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  skyberrys
  I am disappointed in how vague the classifications are for what people want. 'professional excellence ' anyone? I was expecting more concrete responses, but I guess since it's working with what we told it, generalities are prevalent in a write up. If I keep looking, perhaps at the quotes, I might find more concrete answers.And just keep scrolling, you can make it to the story eventually.
• sudo_cowsay
  I don't like describing countries like this but: a bit underdeveloped countries (compared to North American and European countries) seem to have a more positive view on AI.
• vrinimi
  Cool to find my own quote among those they've decided to showcase.
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  esperent
  Save you a click, way, way down the page you'll find that it's all generic, whitewashed niceties like:01. Professional excellence 18.8%02. Personal transformation 13.7%03. Life management 13.5%04. Time freedom 11.1%05. Financial independence 9.7%06. Societal transformation 9.4%07. Entrepreneurship 8.7%08. Learning & growth 8.4%09. Creative expression 5.6%I find this highly suspicious. I'm sure there would be at least 10% who respond "I want it to go away".
• chenglin97
  Why do websites need to be so front end heavy? When a software company spend so much effort on fancy website, I don’t trust their product
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  ____tom____
  Boy is that a terrible website. I tried to find a story and give up.
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  pmulard
  Consistent users of ~~product~~ AI find it favorable. Color me shocked.I'm much more curious about the results of 80k people who don't use AI regularly.
• fancyfredbot
  Intrigued to see a blatant grammatical error ("took that logic farther" should be "took that logic further").Is this incompetence or a deliberate error to indicate human authorship?If the former then why aren't they using at least an AI to proof read? If the latter then what do anthropic think is wrong with AI written text?
• tropeypeople
  Em dashes in the user quotes, uh?
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  seriousmice
  I mean, I don't know.. those quotes seem way too clean from what I'd expect of normal people chatting. Also the use of em-dash. Does it say somewhere that it's an LLM that has compressed the sentiments of the conversations to create these quotes? I wouldn't be surprised if it was.
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  SpicyLemonZest
  > “It’s much easier for me to learn without being judged—just friendly feedback. It's harder with friends or family to get that.” White collar worker, BrazilI'm not going to claim I know this response was written by an AI, but it's very suspicious. I would like to hear about how Anthropic ensured that the survey responses were provided by real human beings using their own words.
• anon
  undefined
• kindkang2024
  [dead]
• doublediamond21
  [dead]
• pissedoffadmin
  [dead]
• verisimi
  > 80,508 peopleNot 81,000 as it says in the title. I know I'm being nitpicky, but I wouldn't round up to 81k. Surely the 'important number' in this case is 80, so you would round down to that. Then let the reader pleasantly discover you had interviewed ~500 more than you stated.It's funny to me when someone does this sort of minor hyperbole that's verging on lying - you have to wonder what is going on.
• goatyishere59
  this is more nuanced than the title suggests. worth reading the whole thing