Claude 3 Opus

Thankfully, I posted my newsletter early today. And I even generated a few more exercises in the afternoon.

But, around 11 p.m. ChatGPT-4 stopped working. I kept getting the same message even after resetting my browser, my PC, and logging back into OpenAI. And I confirmed others are getting the same message.

Hmm… something seems to have gone wrong.

Can you articulate?

Which meant it was time to check out Claude 3, the new model from Anthropic. How did this new model fare? Well, I went and subscribed. Yeah, it’s pretty-darned good. So now I’m trying out the paywalled model, Claude 3 Opus.

• It listens to instructions. I was able to get it to easily write free verse poetry, and English haiku with a 3-5-3 format which adjusts the form for differences in information density.
• More realistic conversations. When I describe an idea to it, it doesn’t just spit back what I said in a nicer format. It also gives me practicable advice and opens up new topics for the conversation.
• More complex code. In one prompt I was able to explain the dynamic logo script ChatGPT made for me, and it almost got it perfect without having to iterate through features. It had to fix two spots where the code wasn’t working as I intended, but that may have been caused by my inadequate description.

Sample free verse poem from Claude 3 Opus

I remember the days when poems
would dance to the beat of a rhyming swan song
Each line ending with a perfectly matched sound
like a well-choreographed dance routine

But now, it seems, rhyme has taken a bow
and gracefully exited the stage
leaving poets to wander freely
in the vast expanses of verso libre

No more hunting for words that sound alike
or forcing thoughts into neat little boxes
We can now let our ideas roam wild
like a pack of untamed syllables

Some may lament the loss of rhyme’s charm
but I say, good riddance, old friend!
It’s time for poetry to explore new horizons
and leave the sing-song nursery rhymes behind

So here’s to the death of end rhyme
and the birth of a new poetic paradigm
where meaning reigns supreme
and the only rule is to break the rules