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Anthropic: "Applicants should not use AI assistants"

simonwillison.net

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Re: Anthropic: "Applicants should not use AI assistants"

#12

Post by nialse »

It makes sense. Having the right people with the right merits and motivations will become even more important in the age of AI. Why you might ask? Execution is nothing when AI matures. Grasping the big picture, communicating effectively and possessing domain knowledge will be key. More roles in cognitive work will become senior positions. Of course you must know how to make the most out of AI, but it is more interesting what skills you bring to the table without it.

Re: Anthropic: "Applicants should not use AI assistants"

#13

Post by oytis »

OsrsNeedsf2P wrote: post #9

> please do not use AI assistants during the application process. We want to understand your personal interest in Anthropic without mediation through an AI system, and we also want to evaluate your non-AI-assisted communication skills. Please indicate 'Yes' if you have read and agree. Exact opposite of our application process at my previous company. We said usage of ChatGPT was expected during the application and int…

Wow. I heavily rely on Google for work, wouldn't expect a candidate spend precious interview time googling though.

Re: Anthropic: "Applicants should not use AI assistants"

#15

Post by sshine »

> please do not use AI assistants during the application process. We want to understand your personal interest in Anthropic without mediation through an AI system, and we also want to evaluate your non-AI-assisted communication skills.

There are two backwards things with this:

1) You can't ask people to not use AI when careful, responsible use is undetectable.

It just isn't a realistic request. You'll have great replies without AI use and great replies with AI use, and you won't be able to tell whether a great reply used AI or not. You will just be able to filter sludge and dyslexia.

2) This is still the "AI is cheating" approach, and I had hoped Anthropic to be thought leaders on responsible AI use:

In life there is no cheating. You're just optimizing for the wrong thing. AI made your homework? Guess what, the homework is a proxy for your talent, and it didn't make your talent.

If AI is making your final product and you're none the wiser, it didn't really help you, it just made you addicted to it.

Teach a man to fish...

Re: Anthropic: "Applicants should not use AI assistants"

#17

Post by dailykoder »

sigmoid10 wrote: post #6

This is quite a conundrum. These AI companies thrive on the idea that very soon people will not be replaced by AI, but by people who can effectively use AI to be 10x more productive. If AI turns a normal coder into a 10x dev, then why wouldn't you want to see that during an interview? Especially since cheating this whole interview system has become trivial in the past months. It's not the applicants that are the prob…

Very very true! Give them a take home assignment first and if they have a good result on that, give them an easier task, without AI, in person. Then you will quickly figure out who actually understands their work

Re: Anthropic: "Applicants should not use AI assistants"

#18

Post by rapidaneurism »

firtoz wrote: post #5

It's also a personal question, not a "why should someone work here", but a "what motivates YOU"

As someone for whom the answer is always 'money' I learned very quickly that a certain level of -how should I call it- bullshit is necessary to get the HR person to pass my CV to someone competent. As I am not as skilled in bullshit as I am in coding, it would make sense to outsource that irrelevant part of the selection process, no?
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