Anthropic's AI-Generated Blog 'Claude Explains' Shut Down After Brief Launch

Anthropic's AI is writing its own blog -- with human oversight | TechCrunch

A week ago, Anthropic quietly launched Claude Explains, a new page on its website that's generated mostly by the company's AI model family, Claude. Populated by posts on technical topics related to various Claude use cases (e.g. "Simplify complex codebases with Claude"), the blog is intended to be a showcase of sorts for Claude's writing abilities. It's not clear just how much of Claude's raw writing is making its way into Claude Explains posts. According to a spokesperson, the blog is overseen by Anthropic's "subject matter experts and editorial teams," who "enhance" Claude's drafts with "insights, practical examples, and [...] contextual knowledge." "This isn't just vanilla Claude output -- the editorial process requires human expertise and goes through iterations," the spokesperson said. "From a technical perspective, Claude Explains shows a collaborative approach where Claude [creates] educational content, and our team reviews, refines, and enhances it." None of this is obvious from Claude Explains' homepage, which bears the description, "Welcome to the small corner of the Anthropic universe where Claude is writing on every topic under the sun." One might be easily misled into thinking that Claude is responsible for the blog's copy end-to-end. Anthropic says it sees Claude Explains as a "demonstration of how human expertise and AI capabilities can work together," starting with educational resources. "Claude Explains is an early example of how teams can use AI to augment their work and provide greater value to their users," the spokesperson said. "Rather than replacing human expertise, we're showing how AI can amplify what subject matter experts can accomplish [...] We plan to cover topics ranging from creative writing to data analysis to business strategy." Anthropic's experiment with AI-generated copy, which comes just a few months after rival OpenAI said it had developed a model tailored for creative writing, is far from the first to be articulated. Meta's Mark Zuckerberg has said he wants to develop an end-to-end AI ad tool, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently predicted that AI could someday handle "95% of what marketers use agencies, strategists, and creative professionals for today." Elsewhere, publishers have piloted AI newswriting tools in a bid to boost productivity and, in some cases, reduce hiring needs. Gannett has been especially aggressive, rolling out AI-generated sports recaps and summaries beneath headlines. Bloomberg added AI-generated summaries to the tops of articles in April. And Business Insider, which laid off 21% of its staff last week, has pushed for writers to turn to assistive AI tools. Even legacy outlets are investing in AI, or at least making vague overtures that they might. The New York Times is reportedly encouraging staff to use AI to suggest edits, headlines and even questions to ask during interviews, while The Washington Post is said to be developing an "AI-powered story editor" called Ember. Yet many of these efforts haven't gone well, largely because AI today is prone to confidently making things up. Business Insider was forced to apologize to staff after recommending books that don't appear to exist but instead may have been generated by AI, according to Semafor. Bloomberg has had to correct dozens of AI-generated summaries of articles. G/O Media's error-riddled AI-written features, published against editors' wishes, attracted widespread ridicule. The Anthropic spokesperson noted that the company is still hiring across marketing, content and editorial, and "many other fields that involve writing," despite the company's dip into AI-powered blog drafting. Take that for what you will.

Anthropic's AI-generated blog dies an early death | TechCrunch

A week after TechCrunch profiled Anthropic's experiment to task the company's Claude AI models with writing blog posts, Anthropic wound down the blog and redirected the address to its homepage. Sometime over the weekend, the Claude Explains blog disappeared -- along with its initial few posts. A source familiar tells TechCrunch the blog was a "pilot" meant to help Anthropic's team combine customer requests for explainer-type "tips and tricks" content with marketing goals. Claude Explains, which had a dedicated page on Anthropic's website and was edited for accuracy by humans, was populated by posts on technical topics related to various Claude use cases (e.g. "Simplify complex codebases with Claude"). The blog, which was intended to be a showcase of sorts for Claude's writing abilities, wasn't clear about how much of Claude's raw writing was making its way into each post. An Anthropic spokesperson previously told TechCrunch that the blog was overseen by "subject matter experts and editorial teams" who "enhance[d]" Claude's drafts with "insights, practical examples, and [...] contextual knowledge." The spokesperson also said Claude Explains would expand to topics ranging from creative writing to data analysis to business strategy. Apparently, those plans changed in pretty short order. "[Claude Explains is a] demonstration of how human expertise and AI capabilities can work together," the spokesperson told TechCrunch earlier this month. "[The blog] is an early example of how teams can use AI to augment their work and provide greater value to their users. Rather than replacing human expertise, we're showing how AI can amplify what subject matter experts can accomplish." Claude Explains didn't get the rosiest reception on social media, in part due to the lack of transparency about which copy was AI-generated. Some users pointed out it looked a lot like an attempt to automate content marketing, an ad tactic that relies on generating content on popular topics to serve as a funnel for potential customers. More than 24 websites were linking to Claude Explains posts before Anthropic wound down the pilot, according to search engine optimization tool Ahrefs. That's not bad for a blog that was only live for around a month. Anthropic might've also grown wary of implying Claude performs better at writing tasks than is actually the case. Even the best AI today is prone to confidently making things up, which has led to embarrassing gaffes on the part of publishers that have publicly embraced the tech. For example, Bloomberg has had to correct dozens of AI-generated summaries of its articles, and G/O Media's error-riddled AI-written features -- published against editors' wishes -- attracted widespread ridicule.

Anthropic Abruptly Shuts Down Blog Run by Its AI, Won't Say Why

Anthropic wanted to show off its Claude chatbot's writing skills by having it pen a blog on the plain old internet -- but just after announcing the venture, the company has already kiboshed the entire thing. As TechCrunch reports, the "Claude Explains" project was only live for a few weeks before Anthropic decided to pull the plug, erasing all of its purportedly human-edited posts -- which seem mostly to have been about coding -- without any explanation. Revealed by TechCrunch earlier in June, Claude's blog was, as an Anthropic spokesperson told the website, a "demonstration of how human expertise and AI capabilities can work together." "Rather than replacing human expertise, we're showing how AI can amplify what subject matter experts can accomplish," that spokesperson explained. "We plan to cover topics ranging from creative writing to data analysis to business strategy." Marketingspeak aside, it was unclear how much of the Claude Explains writing was written by the AI and how much had been edited by humans -- and folks on social media were quick to point out that lack of transparency. "Blogs typically aren't written in the third person," one Redditor commented on an r/Singularity post about the blog. "This is just edited Claude outputs on various basic programming and functionality topics." "If it needs a human to tell it what to write," another user in the same thread noted, "it's not writing its own blog." Though Anthropic seemed more than happy to speak to TechCrunch when announcing the Claude Explains experiment, the company doesn't seem to have offered any public comment about the project's seeming cancellation. We've reached out to Anthropic to ask what's really going on, and why the blog is no longer online, and have not yet heard back. While this is far from the first chatbot-assisted blogging gambit, it appears that Claude Explains was the first AI company-sponsored blog penned, with human assistance, by a chatbot itself. Had Anthropic been less opaque about the breakdown of labor between AI and humans, it could have been a fascinating experiment to observe. Instead, the company founded by OpenAI expats seems to be hoping this embarrassment goes away without much more attention.

Claude now writes for Anthropic's blog

Anthropic launched Claude Explains a week ago, showcasing its Claude AI model family's writing capabilities. The blog features posts on technical topics related to Claude use cases; however, the content is overseen by human experts and editorial teams. Anthropic's spokesperson indicated that subject matter experts and editorial teams enhance Claude's drafts, integrating practical examples and contextual knowledge. According to the spokesperson, the editorial process requires human expertise, and the collaborative approach involves Claude creating educational content, which the team reviews, refines, and enhances. Despite the human oversight, Claude Explains' homepage states, "Welcome to the small corner of the Anthropic universe where Claude is writing on every topic under the sun." Anthropic views Claude Explains as a demonstration of how human expertise and AI capabilities can collaborate, beginning with educational resources. A spokesperson stated that Claude Explains exemplifies how teams can use AI to augment their work and provide greater value to users. The intent is to amplify what subject matter experts can accomplish, and plans include covering topics from creative writing to data analysis to business strategy. Anthropic's experiment follows OpenAI's development of a model tailored for creative writing. Meta's Mark Zuckerberg seeks to develop an end-to-end AI ad tool, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman predicted AI could handle "95% of what marketers use agencies, strategists, and creative professionals for today." Anthropic has unveiled its new Claude 4 series AI models Publishers have also been piloting AI newswriting tools. Gannett has rolled out AI-generated sports recaps and summaries, and Bloomberg added AI-generated summaries to articles. Business Insider has encouraged writers to use assistive AI tools after laying off 21% of its staff. Legacy outlets are also exploring AI. The New York Times is reportedly encouraging staff to use AI to suggest edits, headlines, and questions for interviews. The Washington Post is developing an "AI-powered story editor" called Ember. Some AI efforts have faced challenges. Business Insider apologized for recommending nonexistent books generated by AI, according to Semafor. Bloomberg has corrected dozens of AI-generated summaries. G/O Media's AI-written features, published against editors' wishes, received criticism. Anthropic's spokesperson stated that the company is hiring across marketing, content, editorial, and other fields involving writing, despite its use of AI-powered blog drafting.

Anthropic pulls Claude Explains blog one week after launch

Anthropic discontinued its Claude Explains blog, which featured AI-generated content, approximately one week after its launch. The blog, intended to highlight Claude's writing capabilities, has been removed, and the URL now redirects to Anthropic's homepage. According to a source, the blog was a pilot project designed to combine customer requests for "tips and tricks" content with the company's marketing objectives. The Claude Explains blog, found on a dedicated page on Anthropic's website, offered posts related to Claude use cases, such as "Simplify complex codebases with Claude." Human editors reviewed the content for accuracy. An Anthropic spokesperson stated earlier this month that the blog exemplified the collaboration between human expertise and AI, explaining, "[Claude Explains is a] demonstration of how human expertise and AI capabilities can work together." The spokesperson added, "[The blog] is an early example of how teams can use AI to augment their work and provide greater value to their users. Rather than replacing human expertise, we're showing how AI can amplify what subject matter experts can accomplish." The company initially planned to broaden the blog's scope to include creative writing, data analysis, and business strategy. Due to a lack of transparency regarding the extent of AI involvement in the content's creation, Claude Explains was met with some negative responses on social media. Some users suggested that it resembled an attempt to automate content marketing. Before its removal, search engine optimization tool Ahrefs reported over 24 websites linking to Claude Explains posts. Anthropic might have also reconsidered implying inflated capabilities of Claude's writing. Other publishers, such as Bloomberg, which had to correct AI-generated article summaries, have experienced issues with AI-generated content, according to The New York Times.