3 ms·

> I think we put up with Fable's occasional hiccups because there's nothing better at the moment. Which was an argument for using every less powerful model sin

by palata 2mo ago

> I think we put up with Fable's occasional hiccups because there's nothing better at the moment. Which was an argument for using every less powerful model since the moment they got useful, right? When was that? Opus 4.5 maybe? Let's say Opus 4.5 for the sake of the argument. So back then we were like "DeepSeek is not good enough, I need Opus 4.5". Now DeepSeek is better than Opus 4.5. So if Opus 4.5 was good enough back then, DeepSeek is better than that now. Sure, it's always nicer to have a slightly better model. But the price difference starts mattering a lot more when all the models are already sufficiently good.

AussieWog93 2mo ago
To put actual numbers on it, since using AI to start solving all kinds of bottlenecks/inefficiencies in our small business, we've seen monthly net profit go up by around $4,000 USD. These are semi-permanent fixes, and the tech is only partially deployed. I am the only one using it, and I only use it part time. We've just spun up our first Hermes agent, with direct API access to our main inventory system and that's expected to find another few grand per month in misallocation/inefficiency. I wouldn't be surprised if we were doing more like $10k/mo higher in 6-9 months' time. When you're talking about numbers like this, the fact that one AI is $100/mo and another is $10/mo or $40/mo doesn't matter. They could make GLM-5.2, or any other Opus 4.5-class model free and it still wouldn't make sense to deploy in a commercial context. The other angle I'd approach things from is that Opus 4.5 (and I'd agree with you that that model was the saddle point) was "good enough" for the types of things we were asking it to do back then, but as the models have become more capable the tasks we're asking them to do have also expanded with it. I know I've personally gone from "hey can fix this race condition with a Redis mutex" 6 months ago to "Independently redesign this full embedded USB stack and QA it end-to-end, working around a specific Kernel bug in macOS Tahoe that requires decompilation to find the source of, while keeping in mind the constraints of our 8-bit AVR chip from 2011" now. But that said, yes, maybe in 5 years' time we will reach an "intelligence saturation" where the average person won't be able to even conceive of how to use the new SOTA.
- RealWed5 2mo ago
  "оur first Hermes agent, with direct API access to our main inventory system" – let me assure you that absolutely nothing can go wrong here, mate. /s
  - user43928 2mo ago
    Don't you think that's a bit of an inane comment to make about a setup you know nothing about? Surely they are using read-only access.
    - AussieWog93 2mo ago
      We are obviously limiting access to be read-only for anything customer-facing (it will be able to put recommendations in the dashboard but not actually change things directly) but I think the point of GP's comment was literally just to get a reaction.
  - petervuto 2mo ago
    When you do things in life, sometimes things go wrong. Oh no! This is such a ridiculous objection for how beloved it is. Wide swathes of the public can't cope with any adversity or risk.
    - don_esteban 2mo ago
      No, the point is that with human in the loop the downside is (usually!) rather limited, as common sense would stop obvious fuckups (ok, not always, but still). With an agent (especially incompetently employed), the danger of unwittingly destroying your company (or at least, the crucial data/reputation) is rather higher. We are notoriously bad at estimating the downside risks in complex systems. The most obvious case is the downside risks in complex financial constructs... things look great for a while ... until a sudden surprising collapse arrives and totally destroys all the upside you think you have created.
      - 2mo ago

by palata 2mo ago

AussieWog93 2mo ago

To put actual numbers on it, since using AI to start solving all kinds of bottlenecks/inefficiencies in our small business, we've seen monthly net profit go up by around $4,000 USD. These are semi-permanent fixes, and the tech is only partially deployed. I am the only one using it, and I only use it part time. We've just spun up our first Hermes agent, with direct API access to our main inventory system and that's expected to find another few grand per month in misallocation/inefficiency. I wouldn't be surprised if we were doing more like $10k/mo higher in 6-9 months' time. When you're talking about numbers like this, the fact that one AI is $100/mo and another is $10/mo or $40/mo doesn't matter. They could make GLM-5.2, or any other Opus 4.5-class model free and it still wouldn't make sense to deploy in a commercial context. The other angle I'd approach things from is that Opus 4.5 (and I'd agree with you that that model was the saddle point) was "good enough" for the types of things we were asking it to do back then, but as the models have become more capable the tasks we're asking them to do have also expanded with it. I know I've personally gone from "hey can fix this race condition with a Redis mutex" 6 months ago to "Independently redesign this full embedded USB stack and QA it end-to-end, working around a specific Kernel bug in macOS Tahoe that requires decompilation to find the source of, while keeping in mind the constraints of our 8-bit AVR chip from 2011" now. But that said, yes, maybe in 5 years' time we will reach an "intelligence saturation" where the average person won't be able to even conceive of how to use the new SOTA.

RealWed5 2mo ago
"оur first Hermes agent, with direct API access to our main inventory system" – let me assure you that absolutely nothing can go wrong here, mate. /s
- user43928 2mo ago
  Don't you think that's a bit of an inane comment to make about a setup you know nothing about? Surely they are using read-only access.
  - AussieWog93 2mo ago
    We are obviously limiting access to be read-only for anything customer-facing (it will be able to put recommendations in the dashboard but not actually change things directly) but I think the point of GP's comment was literally just to get a reaction.
- petervuto 2mo ago
  When you do things in life, sometimes things go wrong. Oh no! This is such a ridiculous objection for how beloved it is. Wide swathes of the public can't cope with any adversity or risk.
  - don_esteban 2mo ago
    No, the point is that with human in the loop the downside is (usually!) rather limited, as common sense would stop obvious fuckups (ok, not always, but still). With an agent (especially incompetently employed), the danger of unwittingly destroying your company (or at least, the crucial data/reputation) is rather higher. We are notoriously bad at estimating the downside risks in complex systems. The most obvious case is the downside risks in complex financial constructs... things look great for a while ... until a sudden surprising collapse arrives and totally destroys all the upside you think you have created.
    - 2mo ago