Let's spend years plugging holes in V8, splitting browser components to separate processes and improving sandboxing and then just plug in LLM with debugging enabled into Chrome. Great idea. Last time we had such a great idea it was lead in gasoline.
And at that point it will be a fight mostly between AI lawyers :-)
Jokes aside, Anthropic CEO commands a tad more respect from me, on taking a more principals approach and sticking to it (at least better than their biggest rival). Also for inventing the code agent in the terminal category.
Yes, they know how to use their safety research as marketing, and yes, they got a big DoD contract, but I don’t think that fundamentally conflicts with their core mission.
And honestly, some of their research they publish is genuinely interesting.
Not even close. That distinction belongs to Aider, which was released 1.5 years before Claude Code.
- Claude Code released Introducing Claude Code video on 24 Feb 2025 [0]
- Aider's oldest known GitHub release, v0.5.0, is dated 8 Jun 2025 [1]
I remember evaluating Aider and Cursor side by side before Claude Code existed.
EDIT: I was too late to edit it. I have to keep an eye on what I type...
Maybe I am wrong, but wasnt aider first?
Edit: I stand corrected though. Did a bit of research and aider is considered an agentic tool by late 2023 with auto lint/test steps that feedback to the LLM. My apologies.
It’s more like an assistant that advices you rather than a tool that you hand full control to.
Not saying that either is better, but they’re not the same thing.
It’s a bit of a shame, as there are plenty of people that would love to help maintain it.
I guess sometimes that’s just how things go.
They didn't invest terminal agents really though, Aider was the pioneer there, they just made it more autonomous (Aider could do multiple turns with some config but it was designed to have a short leash since models weren't so capable when it was released).
They definitely have found a good product-market fit with white collar working professional. 4.5 Opus gets the best balance between smarts and speed.
It's a bit like the poorest billionaire flexing how environmentally aware they are because they don't have a 300ft yacht.
Their models are good. They did not use prompts for training from day one (Google is the worst offender here amongst the three). Have been shockingly effective with “Claude Skills”. Contributed MCP to the world and encouraged its adoption. Now did the same for skills, turning it into a standard.
They are happy to be just the tool that helps people get the job done.
I always assumed this was a once-in-history event. Did this cycle of data openness and closure happen before?
I'm shocked, shocked.
Sadly, not joking at all.
If you have clean access privileges then the productivity gain is worth the risk, a risk that we could argue is marginally higher or barely higher. If the workplace also provides the system then the efficiency in auditing operations makes up for any added risk.
I'm guessing that would be the human that let the AI run loose on corporate systems.
All of these have big warning labels like it's alpha software (ie, this isn't for your mom to use). The security model will come later... or maybe it will never be fully solved.
many don’t realize they are the mom