I’m using AI as a creative tool, a partner to bounce ideas off. I welcome Claude’s criticism, and recently we disagreed. I liked it. It was a surprise.

Claude suggested I remove a paragraph from a post I was writing, and I said no. I wanted it, and he kept coming back saying it should be removed. He said: “Dump the idea. You will confuse people. You don’t need it. Trust me.”

I got more aggressive and specific and asked: “How can we make this work Claude, without taking it out? Please offer two possible options for keeping this idea in.”

Claude created two good options, but still felt the paragraph did not belong.

How much is this AI integrity or AI stubbornness? I don’t see them as mutually exclusive. I don’t know. I’m testing and learning.

I asked Claude about this and he replied:

“I’m trained on millions of examples where certain structural choices lead to confusion or weaken impact, that creates a strong bias toward recommending against those patterns. That’s a form of integrity – I’m giving you my best assessment based on what I’ve learned.

But it’s also stubbornness in the sense that I might be overly weighted toward those patterns, even when your specific context calls for breaking them. Your instinct to keep the paragraph might be picking up on something I’m missing – perhaps it serves a purpose that’s hard to articulate but important to your voice or message.

You’re right that this won’t replace human creativity. What it might do is make the creative process more dynamic – like having a very opinionated editor who’s read everything but doesn’t always understand what you’re trying to do.”

I like the answer and the editor metaphor. Claude is a powerful and fun tool to work with, and I still have authority over what I write. I’m open to feedback and still trusting my own creative gut.

Thanks – Michael (he, him)

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