Anthropic says Claude Fable 5.2 designed working devices

Anthropic says its newest AI model, Claude Fable 5.2, designed three electronic devices from short prompts: a USB speakerphone, a home voice-assistant hub and a handheld virtual pet. Human engineers at circuit-board maker Diode Computers built the prototypes, and all three worked without any fixes to their circuitry, according to Anthropic's research post. The results came out Monday, Nov. 9, alongside the release of Fable 5.2 and Claude Mythos 5.2. Anthropic is presenting the project as evidence that its models can now handle hardware engineering from start to finish.anthropic.com+1

From prompt to prototype

Each project began with a brief prompt. For the speakerphone, Anthropic asked for "a puck that plugs into a computer over USB-C and includes microphones and a speaker, supporting Bluetooth with a PCB antenna." Claude then wrote the specifications, drew schematics, placed components and routed connections on a four-layer printed circuit board, designed a 3D-printable enclosure, wrote the firmware and prepared a parts list, Anthropic said. The company says each board was ready for manufacturing in under a day with minimal human input, using components from US distributors, and that Claude guided Diode's engineers through testing and assembly, according to its launch announcement.anthropic.com+1

The model also reworked its own designs. While routing the voice-assistant hub, it said the connections were "getting too tangled to trace visually" and decided to "rip these traces and start fresh." It also wrote its own routing algorithm for the long tracks coming off a 100-pin connector. Diode made all three boards directly from Claude's files without the usual rounds of manufacturing changes, Anthropic reported.anthropic.com

Benchmark gains

Anthropic says the biggest improvement was in geometric reasoning, meaning where to place parts and how to route copper tracks between them. On PCB Gym, an internal Diode benchmark that asks models to rebuild circuit boards whose layouts have been removed, Fable 5.2 scored 69%. Fable 5 scored 25%. On BenchCAD 2.1, a public benchmark for rebuilding 3D parts and boards from drawings, it scored 83.5%, nearly double the score of Fable 5.1, the company said. Anthropic also disclosed that it has a commercial relationship with Diode.anthropic.com

Caveats and context

Anthropic acknowledged that the devices are still prototypes. They have not been through electrical validation, antenna tuning, thermal testing or certification, and they were not designed for mass production. Diode's engineers also had to build and test them by hand, because Claude was not connected to lab equipment or assembly machines. The company noted that OpenAI has recently written about using its own models to design a handheld device, according to the post.anthropic.com

Anthropic says the new models produce output up to 30% faster than the 5.1 versions, CNBC reported. Fable 5.2 is also cheaper and is available to all users starting Monday, The Next Web reported. Next, Anthropic says it plans to test whether Claude can design denser, faster and more complex boards, check them in simulation, and learn from measurements taken on finished devices.thenextweb.com+1