alt Hacker NewsThis. I have been using anthropic and codex subs, on max. All this changed in June. We are clearly entering an era where we cannot rely on American models. As a solo developer I value reliability over performance. I cannot pay hundred of $, plus a lot of my private time figuring out how to properly use this technology, for it to be taken away within hours.
On top of that, the intelligence is being dialed down. Sonet 5 is a living proof of this. Fable has strong guardrails, but new Sonet is a dumbed down expensive model, which already falls behind GLM 5.2 and Kimi 2.7. I might go back to Claude since I know Fable is just a limited offer, and I am not going to pay for API usage. But what they are signaling with Sonet will also come to Opus. A lobotomized more expensive model.
I am honestly baffled how the current administration is giving the whole world, on a golden plate, to China. And they don't seem too bothered about it. They are living in their own bubble and reality distortion field I guess.
I could go on endless rant about Dario, but I feel I am so strongly biased now that my judgement might be clouded.
Time to move on
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the intelligence is being dialed down. Sonet 5 is a living proof of this.
Huh? Sonnet 5 is a strict improvement over Sonnet 4.6 at the same price.
I feel like I see this comment every few months and yet in between people keep talking about all of the functionality they’re getting out of anthropic’s offerings. It doesn’t seem to me that people are willing to give up the “shackles” as it were and we’re just going to wind up with what we’re fearing here. On top of that, local models are just not turnkey enough for the average person yet (go ahead and drop somebody into LM studio and tell them to get to work, it won’t go well).
AI tech is clearly a Red Queen's Race[0]. In the long-term, whoever can run the fastest the longest will win. Adverse action that doesn't materially impact the rate of execution has little effect on this outcome except to the extent it reduces the rate of execution of competitors. Historically, American business is exceptional at executing this type of game and patient when it comes to making it pay for itself.
The AI model people choose today has no bearing on the ultimate trajectory of the competition. Both the US and China understand this. EU simply can't move quick enough to be competitive in this type of game, which I think they also recognize.
Everyone is betting that the model you use will be a Hobson's Choice[1] over a long enough time horizon. They are likely correct.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen%27s_race
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobson%27s_choice