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This is how I feel whenever I see bold all caps instructions in a system prompt or someone claims they conducted "research" and found the magic prompt template

by cube00 4mo ago

This is how I feel whenever I see bold all caps instructions in a system prompt or someone claims they conducted "research" and found the magic prompt template that makes the model pay out. Maybe it works some of the time but it isn't a solution that works everytime. It reminds me of people hovering to play a slot machine when someone gets up and it hasn't paid out as if they've solved slot machines. While I don't mind putting something in a loop until the tests pass, I'm less comfortable doing that when providers are silently rerouting to lower quality models, or in Google's case burning quota faster to ease their own server load without being transparent about what the "standard limits" are to begin with. [1] I'm hopeful I'll be more comfortable with these "slot machines" when frontier models get to the point where they can be run locally on hardware I can actually afford so I know exactly what I'm getting and not jumping at shadows with providers playing tricks behind the scenes to ease their own load without admitting the customer is getting less for their money as they get more popular. [1]: https://support.google.com/gemini/answer/16275805?hl=en&sjid=16852286370759456931-NC#zippy=%2Cusage-limit-changes:~:text=Limits%20may%20change%20without%20notice%2C%20including%20due%20to%20capacity%20constraints.%20When%20there%E2%80%99s%20a%20large%20increase%20in%20activity%20in%20Gemini%20Apps%2C%20we%20may%20change%20limits%20to%20maintain%20a%20high%20standard%20of%20quality.%C2%A0 https://support.google.com/gemini/answer/16275805?hl=en&sjid...

coldtea 4mo ago
>This is how I feel whenever I see bold all caps instructions in a system prompt or someone claims they conducted "research" and found the magic prompt template that makes the model pay out. Maybe it works some of the time but it isn't a solution that works everytime. For such thing to be useful, it's enough that they works substantially more times that not having those instructions in.
- Planktonne 4mo ago
  Every gambler thinks their system works, given enough chances.
user43928 4mo ago
Has there been any evidence of a well known provider rerouting to lower quality models? Last I saw, engineers working at OpenAI denied this on HN. I saw that someone set up a tracker that aims to record the performance of the models, and so far it has not shown any statistically significant deviation in performance for Codex, and not yet enough data for Claude: https://marginlab.ai/trackers/codex/ https://marginlab.ai/trackers/codex/
- cube00 4mo ago
  > Has there been any evidence of a well known provider rerouting to lower quality models? The firm [Anthropic] would deliberately degrade the model’s performance in ways that were invisible to the user. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48485958 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48485958
- dannyw 4mo ago
  Yes, OpenAI admits they silently reroute sensitive requests to different models for user welfare at least: https://openai.com/index/building-more-helpful-chatgpt-experiences-for-everyone/ https://openai.com/index/building-more-helpful-chatgpt-exper... The implementation was so borked, SamA went back on Reddit and apologised: https://old.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1o6jins/updates_for_chatgpt/ https://old.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1o6jins/updates_fo... Model re-routing happens for coding tasks too. For example, in OpenAI support pages used to (at least 1 month ago when I checked) mention that if they automatically use a cheaper -mini to accomplish the task behind the scenes, you’ll be charged -mini prices even if you selected a more expensive model. I just checked again and they’ve removed it, but there’s probably archives. Finally, even if they’re the same weights, you don’t know what quantisation you’re running at. Adaptive quantisation based on load (given workday peaks), or similar techniques, have been happening since the ChatGPT 3.5 days; the techniques are probably more advanced now.
  - user43928 4mo ago
    What you linked appears to be related to GPT-5's Auto router in the ChatGPT app back then, and that it supposedly would choose the 'good' model over the pretty bad Instant model for mental health requests. That's pretty far from the hypothesis that either OpenAI or Anthropic is using adaptive quantisation based on load for their professional coding agent tools. This is what I think engineers working at OpenAI explicitly denied, and for which we have seen zero evidence yet. Many people seem to believe it anyway, but the non-deterministic nature of the tools appears to be the more plausible explanation for perceived degradation, in my opinion.

by cube00 4mo ago

coldtea 4mo ago

>This is how I feel whenever I see bold all caps instructions in a system prompt or someone claims they conducted "research" and found the magic prompt template that makes the model pay out. Maybe it works some of the time but it isn't a solution that works everytime. For such thing to be useful, it's enough that they works substantially more times that not having those instructions in.

Planktonne 4mo ago
Every gambler thinks their system works, given enough chances.

user43928 4mo ago

Has there been any evidence of a well known provider rerouting to lower quality models? Last I saw, engineers working at OpenAI denied this on HN. I saw that someone set up a tracker that aims to record the performance of the models, and so far it has not shown any statistically significant deviation in performance for Codex, and not yet enough data for Claude: https://marginlab.ai/trackers/codex/ https://marginlab.ai/trackers/codex/

cube00 4mo ago
> Has there been any evidence of a well known provider rerouting to lower quality models? The firm [Anthropic] would deliberately degrade the model’s performance in ways that were invisible to the user. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48485958 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48485958
dannyw 4mo ago
Yes, OpenAI admits they silently reroute sensitive requests to different models for user welfare at least: https://openai.com/index/building-more-helpful-chatgpt-experiences-for-everyone/ https://openai.com/index/building-more-helpful-chatgpt-exper... The implementation was so borked, SamA went back on Reddit and apologised: https://old.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1o6jins/updates_for_chatgpt/ https://old.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1o6jins/updates_fo... Model re-routing happens for coding tasks too. For example, in OpenAI support pages used to (at least 1 month ago when I checked) mention that if they automatically use a cheaper -mini to accomplish the task behind the scenes, you’ll be charged -mini prices even if you selected a more expensive model. I just checked again and they’ve removed it, but there’s probably archives. Finally, even if they’re the same weights, you don’t know what quantisation you’re running at. Adaptive quantisation based on load (given workday peaks), or similar techniques, have been happening since the ChatGPT 3.5 days; the techniques are probably more advanced now.
- user43928 4mo ago
  What you linked appears to be related to GPT-5's Auto router in the ChatGPT app back then, and that it supposedly would choose the 'good' model over the pretty bad Instant model for mental health requests. That's pretty far from the hypothesis that either OpenAI or Anthropic is using adaptive quantisation based on load for their professional coding agent tools. This is what I think engineers working at OpenAI explicitly denied, and for which we have seen zero evidence yet. Many people seem to believe it anyway, but the non-deterministic nature of the tools appears to be the more plausible explanation for perceived degradation, in my opinion.