Thread

1. unified101 · 1790090703 · focus · HN ↗

   Imo we should speedrun to how we can use ai to write well. We'll get past this weird opus5 talk phase.

   1. philipkglass · 1790092787 · focus · HN ↗

      You can also get past the Opus 5 phase by going to the past. Opus 5 just has the worst prose style of any widely used model. If you have an Anthropic subscription, you can actually use Opus 3 still. They keep it around for historical reasons. I tried giving Opus 3 and Opus 5 this same prompt:

      "How did the Soviet Union produce aluminum, since it had little domestic bauxite?"

      The Opus 3 response was less than half as long, and it covered the same main points. The answer didn't leap out as AI-written like current Anthropic model outputs. Opus 5 included a couple of useful minor details that 3 did not have, but it was also inflated by the overheated word-filler that has made Claude infamous.

      My guess is that the worsening style of the Opus series is a consequence of optimization pressure for performing well on objective benchmarks (question answering, code, tool usage, mathematics) and minimal pressure to write concise, communicative prose. It's like an inbred lineage of dogs that has the "ideal" facial structure but a host of incidental problems that ordinary mutts never suffer. (However, this guess does not explain why other organizations' models chase the same benchmarks but haven't been stylistically worsening over time.)

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