While that's annoying, the other frontier models easily overcome this with appropriate tool usage. I do a lot of research with frontier models and they're very good about identifying where their parametric knowledge is insufficient and searching for the correct knowledge on the internet. 3.8 Flash is HORRIFIC. The majority of the time it doesn't use any tools and infers things from its parametric knowledge. Things which should clearly have implied tool calls. Historical statistics, legal precedent, economic data, etc. I think it's incredibly clear that it has been tuned for speed and not accuracy.

Of course, it's called "flash," and that implies its purpose. I have little use for speed and a LOT of use for accuracy, so I'm hopeful 4.0 is much better. I saw a benchmark earlier today showing that it is much less prone to hallucinations. Let's see.