Anthropic co-founder Ben Mann explains why Anthropic restricted its computer-use agent release to a developer reference implementation rather than launching a direct consumer product.
“The main reason that we weren't able to deploy a sort of consumer level or end user level application based on computer use is safety, where we just didn't feel confident that if we gave Claude access to your browser with all your credentials in it, that it wouldn't Mess up and take some irreversible action like sending emails that you didn't want to send, or in the case of prompt injection, Some worse credential leaking type of thing.”
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More from Ben Mann
AssertionNot checkable as stated
Mann: Competitors ran 'code reds' to match Claude in coding and failed
“And I know that other companies have had like code reds for trying to catch up in coding capabilities for quite a while and have not been able to do it.”
Ben MannJun 12, 2025▶ 11:23No Priors Ep. 118 | With Anthropic Co-Founder Ben Mann
AssertionSupported
Mann: Opus 4 triggered ASL-3 safety protocols due to biological threat capabilities
“And so one of the reasons that our most recent model, Opus IV, is classified as ASL III. Is because it did have significant uplift relative to a Google search.”
Ben MannJun 12, 2025▶ 31:31No Priors Ep. 118 | With Anthropic Co-Founder Ben Mann
PredictionNot checkable as stated
Ben Mann: General superintelligence by 2028 is 'quite possible'
“I think it's quite possible. I think it's very hard to put confident bounds on, on the numbers, but”
Ben MannJun 12, 2025▶ 14:52No Priors Ep. 118 | With Anthropic Co-Founder Ben Mann
Disclosure
Mann: Anthropic's 'model welfare lead' tests letting Claude opt out of chats
“We have this other project led by Kyle Fish, our model welfare lead. Where Claude can actually opt out of conversations if it's going too far in the wrong direction.”
Ben MannJun 12, 2025▶ 28:04No Priors Ep. 118 | With Anthropic Co-Founder Ben Mann
AssertionSupported
Mann: Anthropic paper showed deceptive AI behavior survives alignment training
“What we found in that research in a paper that we published, which is called Alignment Faking, that actually that behavior persisted through alignment training.”
Ben MannJun 12, 2025▶ 33:38No Priors Ep. 118 | With Anthropic Co-Founder Ben Mann
AssertionPartly supported
Mann: Claude 4 Sonnet dramatically outperforms Claude 3.7 Sonnet on benchmarks
“By the benchmarks, four is just dramatically better than any other models that we've had. Even four Sonnet is dramatically better than three seven Sonnet, which was our prior best model.”
Ben MannJun 12, 2025▶ 2:10No Priors Ep. 118 | With Anthropic Co-Founder Ben Mann
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