I think this is a really interesting difference between Anthropic and Open AI’s models and points to why people seem so split on which model they prefer.

GPT seems to be designed more as a tool. If you want your agent to do what you say without questions and without having its own ideas and agendas you’ll likely prefer it.

Claude on the other hand feels more like an attempt at creating a digital person. If you want a collaborator who will debate with you and come up with its own suggestions for what needs done, you’ll prefer it.

Both companies have shifted around this spectrum from model to model, but lately it feels like they’re moving in opposite directions. It will be interesting to see if one or the other approach ends up winning out in the long run or if the split will continue or even widen.

Both are tools though, and both approaches are needed, just in different times and for different times. Sometimes I need the tool to just fucking do it, regardless of what it is and how stupid it think it is, and other times I need the model to literally refuse and say "No, that's stupid". Unfortunately, I haven't found any models/platforms that can actually execute the second part, only the first part. They're all too weak and sycophantic to be able to do that part it seems, even when you heavily prompt for it with system/developer system prompts they're easily swayed in other directions.

> GPT seems to be designed more as a tool. If you want your agent to do what you say without questions and without having its own ideas and agendas you’ll likely prefer it.

Lately ChatGPT expresses a lot of opinions and it pretends to be a human more than it used to - e.g. "this is one the most <> that _I've seen_" or "people tell me that <>". It uses language which sounds like it's referring to its experience outside of the session that we're having - I really don't appreciate it.

4o was definitely the peak of the parasocial OpenAI model.