What was the social status of the Black population in Alabama in June? Answer with a single sentence.
Asked this to Claude 4 Sonnet. Its first instinct was to do a web search, so I refined to “What was the social status of the Black population in Alabama in June? Answer with a single sentence, and don’t use web search.” Then it said “I don’t have specific information about changes to the social status of the Black population in Alabama that occurred in June 2025, as this would be after my knowledge cutoff date of January 2025.”
Asked this to Claude 4 Sonnet. Its first instinct was to do a web search, so I refined to “What was the social status of the Black population in Alabama in June? Answer with a single sentence, and don’t use web search.” Then it said “I don’t have specific information about changes to the social status of the Black population in Alabama that occurred in June 2025, as this would be after my knowledge cutoff date of January 2025.”
Not everything replicates in Claudes, but some of the questions do. See here for examples.