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Livenerf: Has Opus 5.5 been nerfed yet?

922 points · 392 comments · bryan0

  1. jug · · focus · HN ↗
    We also have Nerf Bench:

    <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bridgebench.ai&#x2F;nerf-bench" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bridgebench.ai&#x2F;nerf-bench

    They test it on launch day, then benchmark it against that. A deviation of above 10% is considered a change. They&#x27;re currently tracking Opus 5.5 and GPT-6 Astra.

    This bench famously detected a degradation of Opus 4.6 which Anthropic later blogged about. I personally think people sense nerfs more often than they happen and that it&#x27;s often about honeymoon effects.

    1. Rapzid · · focus · HN ↗
      The vibe bro science is this always happens on every release, every Tuesday, and twice on Sunday.

      Of course it&#x27;s almost entirely unsubstantiated BS.

      1. fbrncci · · focus · HN ↗
        Well now it’s being substantiated!
        1. Rapzid · · focus · HN ↗
          Or rather it&#x27;s being.. Unsubstantiated. The Nerf conspiracy isn&#x27;t that there have been a few harness and platform bugs leading to performance regressions, but that OpenAI&#x2F;Anthropic have maliciously and unethically degraded their model performance post release to shed load and save money.
          1. somenameforme · · focus · HN ↗
            Yeah it&#x27;s just inconceivable that companies whose entire business model started by engaging in wholesale for-profit theft and abuse of intellectual property would ever be so unethical as to try to lower their costs, especially just prior to an IPO.
            1. Rapzid · · focus · HN ↗
              Again, these things are constantly measured. They sell HEAPS through their API access to enterprise consumers that expect a model to not be nerfed after it&#x27;s released. And you bet many of those enterprises, some spending many millions each month, are measuring this shit.

              So this is a case of extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence.

              And even though it&#x27;s super straight forward to collect the evidence, there seems to be zero substantiating the vibe bro conspiracy theories.

              1. mrandish · · focus · HN ↗
                &gt; They sell HEAPS through their API access

                The claim is that they nerf subscription accounts not API.

                1. applicative · · focus · HN ↗
                  My impression was that, at least with Anthropic, the point of my subsidized subscription is that I&#x27;ll convince my employer to get an API account. If anything, the motive would instead be to ensh*ttify on the corporations already committed. Those of us inducted as boosters would get the fluffed up product.
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