alt Hacker NewsI wonder how much the 'inflection point' is a thing vs marketing. I'm sure the models got somewhat better, but even now when I'm trying to 'vibe code' a game with the latest models (combination of Codex w/ gpt5.5 and gpt5.3-codex), they really do struggle.
They definitely get something barebones up and running, but it's far from a fully fledged application.
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I remember this very clearly myself. Before opus 4.5, I was doing a lot of hand holding and was coding a lot myself, but I have not written code since that day more or less.
I did write some stuff myself just to learn how the enigma encryption machine worked, so wrote myself to learn. But professionally, I stopped coding in November.
Paradox - you can get multiple inflection points even as systems start to have dimishing marginal returns in core capability, I think this is due to 'threshold crossing' where something 'becomes good enough for a specific purpose' - it just unlocks capabilities.
'Nail Guns' used to be heavy, required heavy power cords, they were extremely expensive. When they got lighter, cheaper, battery pack ... at some point, they blend seamlessly into the roofers process, and multiply dramatically the work that can be done. Marginal improvements beyond that may not yield the same 'unlocks' because the threshold has been crossed.
Opus 4.5 in November 2025 was legitimately, unironically an inflection point and is the sole reason for the current hysteria.
GPT 5.5 is a significant improvement over GPT 5.4 but I wouldn't call it an inflection.
I feel the change. It went from an autocomplete tool, to an agent running 5 tasks in parallel while I just supervise. The improvement is enormous.
It's very real. Just in the past 2 months or so IMO there's been a pretty big improvement in claude for local dev (although I think a lot of that is less model strength and more harness capability). 1m context is a huge difference (~30 min vs 2.5hr between compact significantly increases the scope of what I get the AI to do before it goes stupid). The other biggest difference I've noticed is a better balance of actually doing the work vs pushing back on bad ideas. I want the AI to tell me if it thinks the thing I am telling it is wrong or a bad idea, but if I confirm, I want it to do that anyway. A couple months ago, the claude was a lot more likely to either say "This is too much work I'm not going to do all of it", tell me the idea was genius (and then pretend to do it) or something equally useless.
It's real for me as a non coder previously uploading a python script asking it to add this function or that function used to break it now usually it just works at least with Claude and Chat Gpt models. Google Gemini still breaks stuff but rumors are their new flash model that will be announced soon is very good. I am usually working with data in csv files and generating spreadsheet pdf etc and the results for that has improved dramatically.
Purely vibe code won't work. You need to define an excellent architecture, have great specs, a solid plan, divide the plan in small phases that fit well in a context window, use TDD and automated code reviews for implementing each phase, do QA and some code review.
At any point you need to have agents review, verify and test the other agents output and iterate until the output is perfect.
And also, have good e2e tests.
IMO, if you don't spend at least a few tens of millions tokens per day, you aren't doing it properly.
I've "vibed" some non-trivial stuff lately using a combination of Codex with 5.5 and Claude Code with Opus 4.7.
Key has been to spend a fair amount of time on initial overall design document, which is split into tangible and limited phases. I go back and forth between them on this document until we're all happy.
For each phase an implementation plan is made. At the end, a summary document of what was delivered and what was discovered. This becomes input to next phase.
I do check the documents, and what they're doing. I also check the tests, some more thorough. And some spot checks on the code to see if I like the structure.
I have mainly used Claude for coding and Codex for design and code review after phases. I ask both to check test coverage after phases.
Managed to implement some tools and libraries without writing a single line of code this way, which have been very beneficial to us.
Since it's so async I can work on other stuff while they plod along.
I think it's not universal though. But stuff that can be tested easily and which you have a firm grasp of what you want to achieve, but not necessarily exactly how, that I've been impressed with.