Product of the Month

When people speak of artificial intelligence today, they usually mean language models — programmes that understand and compose text. Among them, Claude, developed by the American company Anthropic, has earned a reputation as a particularly careful working partner. We put it through everyday use for a month.

The first impression: this assistant does not push itself forward. Where other systems answer with brisk self-assurance, Claude concedes uncertainty, asks when a task is ambiguous, and will politely disagree when a question rests on a false premise. For anyone looking for a sparring partner rather than a yes-man, that is the real gain.

Its strengths show wherever language and structure meet. It summarises long documents without losing the nuances, drafts correspondence in the register you ask for, translates between languages with a remarkable ear for tone, and helps put thoughts in order — whether that means outlining a lecture or working out which arguments will carry a negotiation. It is at home in programming, too; anyone who has to tame a spreadsheet or look after a website will find a patient helper.

The stamina for detail is notable. Give it a layered task — rewriting a text according to twelve separate instructions — and the twelfth instruction is taken as seriously as the first. That reliability in small things is the difference between a novelty and a tool.

In practice it was the work on longer projects that convinced us most. A business letter sharpened over several rounds does not lose its thread with this assistant; it remembers what was said earlier and builds on it instead of starting afresh with every request. Anyone used to working in drafts will appreciate that.

On equipment: besides the chat window in the browser there are applications for computer and mobile, plus extensions for word processing and spreadsheets. Documents, images and tables can be handed over for analysis. For private use the free tier is enough; those who work with it daily will take the subscription.

There are limits, of course. The assistant can be wrong, and it is occasionally wrong with the same calm assurance it brings to being right — figures, names and dates deserve checking. It knows the world only up to a cut-off date and must look things up for anything current. And it replaces no professional judgement: legal advice remains a matter for the lawyer, a diagnosis for the doctor.

To get the most out of it, phrase your requests as you would to a new colleague: with context, with examples, with a clear statement of the result you want. You will rarely get platitudes and often something you can actually use.

Our verdict: an assistant for people who have to write, organise and decide. No oracle, but a shrewd, unexcitable colleague — and in that role currently one of the best on the market.

What is happening on the financial markets

July is behaving on the markets the way summer always has: turnover thins out, movements grow smaller, and whatever news arrives lands harder than usual — simply because there is less weight on the other side. Seasoned investors call it the summer lull; it is a sign of absence, not of weakness.

On interest rates the picture has shifted against borrowers over the past year. Savers still do well: high-yield savings accounts pay between 3.9 and 4.4 per cent, twelve-month certificates of deposit between 4.0 and 4.5 per cent — modestly better than a year ago. Borrowers, by contrast, pay more: the thirty-year fixed mortgage now costs 6.4 to 6.9 per cent instead of the earlier 5.8 to 6.3. Only credit-card and overdraft rates remain where they have always been — punishingly high, and unmoved by anything the central bank does.

On the exchanges the past year was friendly. The Dow Jones rose from 44,100 to 52,800 points, the S&P 500 from 6,000 to 7,383, and gold continued its run from $3,180 to $4,080 an ounce. Those who were invested gained; those who watched are annoyed.

For the weeks ahead the old rule applies: do not set major course changes in a thin summer market. Anyone planning to reallocate waits for September — that is when turnover returns and prices form on a broader basis again.

Cuisine

When the heat settles over the land, heavy food loses all appeal. What serves now is a fish cooked briefly — one you can tell came out of the water rather than having to be rescued from the pan.

Cured char with cucumber and dill — serves four. You need two skinless char fillets, three tablespoons of coarse sea salt, two tablespoons of sugar, the zest of an unwaxed lemon, a bunch of dill, one cucumber, a tub of crème fraîche, pepper and a little olive oil.

Mix salt, sugar and lemon zest, rub the fillets all over with it, and spread the chopped dill on top. Wrap in cling film, set on a plate, weigh down and refrigerate for eight to twelve hours. Then rinse, pat dry and slice thinly.

Halve the cucumber lengthways, remove the seeds and shave into fine strips; salt lightly and leave for ten minutes — that draws off the wateriness. Stir the crème fraîche with a little lemon juice, pepper and the remaining dill.

Serve it flat: a spoonful of the cream spread across the plate, cucumber strips on top, the slices of fish laid loosely over them, a thread of olive oil, a turn of pepper. Dark bread goes with it, and a chilled Grüner Veltliner.

The virtue of this dish lies in its timing: the work falls the evening before, and on the hot day itself the kitchen stays cold.

Humour

The holiday is the one time of year when we willingly do things we would consider an imposition at home: sleep in strange beds, rise at six in the morning to conquer a parasol, and queue for a breakfast we could have made ourselves in four minutes.

It begins with the packing. Everyone packs for two people: the person they are, and the person they intend to be on holiday. That is why hiking boots travel along that will never see a mountain, three books of which one will be half read, and an evening dress for the occasion that does not arise.

At the destination comes the first unmasking: the room with a “side sea view”. A side sea view means you can see the sea if you step onto the balcony, turn your head ninety degrees and are willing to perform gymnastics on a railing. The photograph in the brochure was evidently taken by a drone, which was not included in the booking.

Then the food. Anyone abroad who wants to eat “like a local” will reliably find a restaurant in which none but their own countrymen are sitting, ordering schnitzel. The locals, meanwhile, eat two streets further along, where no menu is displayed in four languages. It is a quiet understanding: we pretend to have discovered the country, and the country pretends to have been expecting us.

Among the most dependable surprises is the weather. One travels twelve hundred kilometres south to escape the rain front, and the rain front, touched by such devotion, travels along. At home, meanwhile, high summer reigns that very week, as the neighbours inform us by picture message — an attention one could have done without.

Souvenirs are a science of their own. On holiday the hand-painted ceramic bowl appears as evidence of regional craftsmanship and an indispensable part of the future household. Unpacked at home, it turns within seconds into an object for which there is no place and whose colours one now calls “an acquired taste”. It migrates into the cupboard, from which it re-emerges only at the next house move, to provoke the same debate again.

Nor should we forget our fellow travellers. One goes away with people one believes one knows, and learns more about them in a single day at the buffet than in ten years of neighbourly acquaintance. Anyone who lays claim to three loungers each morning while travelling as a pair reveals a character no office party would ever have brought to light.

And finally the return. One comes home brown, tired and several insights richer, sets down the suitcase and feels that peculiar contentment which arrives only at the sight of one’s own bed. By the third day at the latest one begins searching online for next year’s offers. Man is a creature capable of learning — only not in this matter.