Tell HN: Claude is completely unusable for biology

16 pointsposted 2 days ago
by Protostome

Item id: 48538686

5 Comments

the__alchemist

8 hours ago

I do a lot of bio and chem, and have been using a mix of Claude, Gemini, and ChatGPT. I have a reasonably well equipped mol bio home lab, and do a lot of structural bio/chem work in rust/CUDA.

I only recall 2 censorship problems:

  - ChatGPT when I asked about LNPs
  - Claude Fable in the brief period before it was removed: Would downgrade with the safety warning on any question related to bio or my code bases, but it didn't block me; just downgraded to an older model. (On every query though!)
Which sorts of questions did you have trouble with? For context, my questions have been about wet lab protocols (How much of X reagent to mix with Y samples using Z equipment, bacteria culture questions/steps, interpreting sequencing or gel results etc), recombinant DNA stuff, molecular dynamics and related work between proteins and small organic molecules, lipids, nucleic acids etc.

skyberrys

a day ago

Well it's not biology related, but Claude is the only model that has told me things that seem benign are racist or self harming for general conversations. These were not at all in that direction. They were very basic queries about how to reactivate an old app account or a question about the ingredients in a food dish image.

PJHkorea

a day ago

Did you happen to start biology-related work immediately in a new session? Before starting, how about laying the groundwork for educational purposes using context for about 10 to 15 turns?

jlongr

a day ago

What do you consider to be straightfoward immunology questions?