> completely meaningless
This is way too strong isn't it? If the user naively assumes Claude is introspecting and will surely be right, then yeah, they're making a mistake. But Claude could get this right, for the same reasons it gets lots of (non-introspective) things right.
It's not too strong. If it answered from its weights, it's pretty meaningless. If it did a web search and found reports of other people saying this, you'd want to know that this is how it answered - and then you'd probably just say that here on HN rather than appealing to claude as an authority on claude.
They also said it "admitted" this as a major problem, as if it has been compelled to tell an uncomfortable truth.