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Claude Opus 5.5

1806 points · 1134 comments · km144

  1. sailingparrot · · focus · HN ↗
    > Claude Opus 5.5 is our first release since we called for pacing the frontier.

    Interesting how the very first line is used to remind the reader of their call to pace the frontier just last week, and everything else after that line is to demonstrate with very specific numbers how they absolutely are not pacing.

    1. mukmuk · · focus · HN ↗
      “Pacing the frontier” sounds smarmy and weird, like the phrase was generated by Claude itself
      1. DiggyJohnson · · focus · HN ↗
        I really don't think it's productive for internet forums to constantly be criticizing language choice when the meaning is clear. Better to respond to the substance of the issue than word choice.

        Edit: In response to the initial replies. To me it clearly means "releasing frontier models at any pace less than as fast as possible". It implies relative restraint compared to the previous state and without stating the degree of restraint.

        1. mpalczewski · · focus · HN ↗
          The meaning isn't clear at all. So open for interpretation that it is meaningless. That's the whole fucking point. For all I know they are "pacing the frontier", or not. The fact that there's no meaning to it let's you know that it was a pointless waste of tokens and attention.
          1. mitchdoogle · · focus · HN ↗
            There's a whole blog article written by Dario Amodei, literally linked from the text "pacing the frontier" - click that and read if you need more context and understanding. The first sentence in this press release is merely stating a fact about the timeline - this is Anthropic's first release since Amodei released the referenced article.
            1. phlakaton · · focus · HN ↗
              The blog post provides some context but no understanding.

              It's meaningless because it's unverifiable. Dario all but said we wouldn't notice if they were pacing or not, because they have no intention of stopping development. The bits we could in theory verify are the external audits, whose independence has already been called into question.

              At the very least, dumping a new model on the world before the ink on the glossy brochures of "Pacing the Frontier" was even dry calls into question their commitment.

              1. johnhamlin · · focus · HN ↗
                It's a blog post, not a white paper
                1. philipallstar · · focus · HN ↗
                  So you agree the term remains vague and thus open to criticism.
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