Anthropic’s already impressive Claude 3.5 Sonnet gains a significant performance boost on Tuesday as the generative AI startup rolls out an enhanced and updated version of the model alongside the new, lightweight Claude 3.5 Haiku. The Sonnet update includes a public beta feature that gives the AI basic control over the computer it’s running on.
Claude 3.5 Sonnet was already a performance leader when it comes to coding tasks, but the new version shows significant across-the-board improvements over its predecessor and steadily outperforms both Gemini 1.5 and GPT-4o on a variety of industry benchmarks. Gemini 1.5 Pro was the only model to best the new 3.5 Sonnet on any test, and did so on the MATH benchmark.
The new 3.5 Haiku is no slouch, either, despite its small size. Scheduled to be released later this month, 3.5 Haiku outperforms Claude 3.0 Opus, the company’s largest last generation model. Like its larger version, the new Haiku is exceedingly proficient at coding tasks, scoring 40.6% on the SWE-bench Verified — higher than both GPT-40 and the original 3.5 Sonnet.
Even more impressive, the new Claude 3.5 Sonnet can now interact with desktop apps via the “Computer Use” API. The AI can generate the necessary keystrokes, mouse clicks, and movements needed to emulate the human user. The company is quick to point out that the system is currently quite experimental and prone to errors. The underlying purpose of the public beta release is to elicit feedback from developers to rapidly improve the API’s performance.
“We trained Claude to see what’s happening on a screen and then use the software tools available to carry out tasks,” Anthropic wrote in a blog post. “When a developer tasks Claude with using a piece of computer software and gives it the necessary access, Claude looks at screenshots of what’s visible to the user, then counts how many pixels vertically or horizontally it needs to move a cursor in order to click in the correct place.”
It’s an AI agent, essentially. That is, its an AI that can automate other software processes, whether that’s generating and qualifying marketing leads, uncovering patterns and trends in medical data, or simply navigating to a specific website and filling out a form you need. Think of them as a more advanced version of existing Robotic Process Automation systems.
The company cites Asana, Canva, Cognition, DoorDash, Replit, and The Browser Company as early adopters of the new feature. Replit, for example, is using Computer Control to “develop a key feature that evaluates apps as they’re being built for their Replit Agent product,” per the announcement.
There’s no need to worry about the AI going all Skynet on us (yet), as Anthropic explains. “Humans remain in control by providing specific prompts that direct Claude’s actions, like ‘use data from my computer and online to fill out this form,’” an Anthropic spokesperson told TechCrunch. “People enable access and limit access as needed. Claude breaks down the user’s prompts into computer commands (e.g., moving the cursor, clicking, typing) to accomplish that specific task.”
Anthropic also concedes that Computer Control could be misused to generate spam, spread misinformation, or commit fraud. In response, the company has developed new classifiers that identify when the API is being used and whether that use is “causing harm.”
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.