Tell HN: Claude is completely unusable for biology

I've found that doing basic biology research with Claude has become extremely difficult. I'm not talking about anything remotely related to developing a bioweapon, just straightforward immunology questions that almost always end up being flagged.

I completely understand the need for guardrails, but in practice they can significantly reduce the tool's usefulness for legitimate scientific research. It sometimes feels like the model is better suited for "vibe coding" than for serving as a serious research assistant.

What's more funny is that you can use claude code together with molecular design models like RFdiffusion and Alphafold to develop a real bioweapon, but since this is in the realm of software, the prompts do not get flagged at all. Those models can even run on consumer GPUs so the limit of access is almost not there.

Has anyone else had a similar experience?

14 points | by Protostome 1 day ago

3 comments

  • skyberrys 10 hours ago
    Well it's not biology related, but Claude is the only model that has told me things that seem benign are racist or self harming for general conversations. These were not at all in that direction. They were very basic queries about how to reactivate an old app account or a question about the ingredients in a food dish image.
  • PJHkorea 12 hours ago
    Did you happen to start biology-related work immediately in a new session? Before starting, how about laying the groundwork for educational purposes using context for about 10 to 15 turns?
  • jlongr 20 hours ago
    What do you consider to be straightfoward immunology questions?