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ilamont • today at 8:46 PM • 3 replies • view on HN

the agent never stops and says, “Wait, this is something another model could do cheaper and faster.” It just plows on with the slow, expensive model. Conversely, the agent never says, “This model is too dumb for this task. Let me tag in a smarter one.”

This is a pretty big failing, which is compounded by the fact that most humans don't know which model to pick, or make assumptions based on Anthropic's hierarchy or "effort" involved.

Like Fable: your toughest challenges. You mean, like Fields Medal toughest challenges? Or analyzing and updating three monster spreadsheet toughest challenges? Or writing a new novel in the style of William Gibson toughest challenges?


Replies

wccrawford • today at 10:57 PM

No, but it will do the opposite You can choose Sonnet and set "/advisor opus" and it will reach up when it thinks it needs to.

TeMPOraL • today at 8:49 PM

OTOH, would you trust the vendor to pick the best model for you? Would you trust them not to prioritize their own load-balancing concerns first?

The descriptions are near-useless and tend to flip around, as model families are not released in sync anymore, that's true, but fortunately, thanks in a big way to subscription pricing, the choice is simple: start with the best model on offer, and when you run out of quota, downgrade to the next best (or briefly switch providers).