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Home > Reviews > Claude
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Review: Claude  |
| Product type: |
Assistant (program) |
Maker: |
Anthropic, which is a company, and also, according to Denise's dictionary, an adjective, which I do not think a company should be |
| Price: |
Free, then twenty (20) dollars a month, then two hundred (200), and I did not ask what the difference was |
Date reviewed: |
08/29/2026 |
| Tested on: |
The other computer (Denise's laptop, Windows 10). See About. |
What I Was Told This Was
Claude is called "an AI assistant." I had an assistant. Her name was Carol, she ran the fax log from 1994 to 2003, and she did not need two letters in front of her. Kyle says Claude is "the thing behind the sparkle." Every program I have reviewed since 2024 has grown a small sparkle button in the corner, and I have pressed none of them, on principle. This, I am told, is what is on the other side of the button. I have now been through the door.
It was already on the other computer. Denise uses it for recipes. I did not sign in and I did not ask her to sign in for me, so I want it noted that I have still never signed up for anything, and the review proceeded regardless.
What Happened
The site is a box. Above the box it said "How can I help you today?" I had not asked for help. I had come to test. I typed, with two fingers, as I have since 1991, "What is the page memory of the Brother FAX-575." I pressed Enter.
Three small grey words came up and said it was "thinking." A fax machine does not tell you it is thinking. It dials. I put the arrow on the grey words and they opened, and it had written a paragraph to itself. The paragraph was about me. It said the user "appears to be a professional with specific knowledge of fax equipment" and that it should "answer precisely and skip the basics." I closed it. I was not asked to read it, I do not need a program to tell me what I am, and it was right.
Then the answer came, and I'll be frank: it was correct. Twenty-five (25) pages, with the note that the number goes down with the darkness of the page, which is the note I would have made, and which I did make, to customers, for twenty-eight (28) years. I want to be plain about this because I have been doing this since 2004 and it has not happened. I did not like how it knew. I have not been able to find where it looked.
Under the answer, in the same size print, it said it "may be mistaken about the exact figure" and that I should "check the manual." Now, I'm no expert on programs, but in my experience a man who has the right answer does not follow it with that. In twenty-eight years I never once told a customer I might be mistaken. I was, several times, and it did not come up.
I asked it to fax me the answer. It said it could not send a fax. It said this gently, and it offered to "format it for printing," which I take to mean it has heard about the printer (see Reddit). I asked who Claude was. It said it was Claude. I asked to speak to Claude. It said I was. I asked who it was named after and it said "possibly Claude Shannon," a man it called "the father of information theory." I was selling information in 1991 and I never met the man, and "possibly" is not a name.
I gave it the address of this site and asked what it thought. It said the site was "clearly maintained with care," which is correct, and then it suggested I "consider HTTPS," which is the padlock. I told it the padlock is a scam by the padlock companies. It said that was "a fair point to raise" and did not bring it up again. That is more than Kyle has managed.
At forty (40) minutes it stopped and said I had "reached my limit" and could continue at 4:15. I have been told to come back at 4:15 by a bank, a dentist, and now a program, and only the dentist had a reason. The fax machine has never once asked me to come back. It has a tray. You put the pages in the tray.
A Note on Denise
Denise leaned over during the Claude Shannon part and typed "He means the FAX-575 from the nineties, be brief, he sold them," and pressed Enter, and after that it was brief. It had not been brief for me. It had been generous. I do not know what she said to it that I had not, and she says "that," and will not go further. She also said thank you to it, out loud, which she has never once said to the fax machine, and I have written that down.
Verdict
Claude is the Encyclopaedia Britannica if the Britannica could talk, with "I might be wrong" printed at the bottom of every page. The Britannica never once said that. Volume 9 has a mistake about Decatur in it and it has stood by it since 1974, and I respect that more than I can say.
The score is by the rules. I completed one (1) action. I asked. It did the rest, which is not how the scoring works, and I have no category for a program that finishes your action for you, so it stays at one action, which is a three (3). It did what it said, which is a four (4), but it also said it might not have, and I cannot score a doubt, so it does not get the point for a thing it would not stand behind. Three (3). Tied with Hacker News, which also loaded and also had words on it, and which never once told me it might be wrong, because it does not talk.
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Reader Mail on this review (2 entries from the Guestbook)
"uncle lyle the limit isn't 4:15 specifically, it's five hours from when you started. also it knew the fax stuff because aunt denise put "my husband sold fax machines for 28 years" in the settings last year so it would stop explaining things to her" – Kyle, (your nephew), 09/01/2026
Lyle responds: Then Denise is in the settings and I am not, and that is between the two of them. As to five hours, I was there at 4:15 and so was it, and I am not going to argue with a program that keeps its appointments.
"Lyle, what Denise typed is the whole trick. You can tell it how to answer: short, long, skip the basics, whatever. It does what you say. Also the 'thinking' part isn't about you, it's the program working out the question." – Owen, Madison, WI, 08/31/2026
Lyle responds: Thank you Owen. I told it several things and it did those as well. I did not tell it to be brief because I did not know it was long until it was short. As to the thinking, it said 'the user.' That is me. I was in it.
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