4 ms·

Using codex every day, in spite of which, I hope some day providers will just start naming their offerings small/medium/large, a bit like we eventually started

Using codex every day, in spite of which, I hope some day providers will just start naming their offerings small/medium/large, a bit like we eventually started doing in software testing. Trying to remember what Sol is or why it's better than the other thing is more cognitive effort than I can muster at this point. And that's a sure sign of commoditisation in itself

phoghed 1mo ago
Sun, Earth, Moon — it’s basically L/M/S like you want but a little less boring. Why is large better than medium to the average end user of ChatGPT though? I don’t think there’s a way to name these things that will satisfy everyone.
- mastercheif 1mo ago
  The naming schema actually tripped me up for a week or so. My brain's initial conception of the concepts was earth-relative, so I mapped it as: Sol = big, it's the sun Luna = medium, in-between sun and earth, space Terra = small, terrestrial
  - inexcf 1mo ago
    Pretty weird when the moon is as much between earth and sun as the earth is between the moon and the sun.
    - kgwgk 1mo ago
      And when it’s in between we cannot even see it (unless it’s exactly in line).
      - hamandcheese 1mo ago
        And when it’s in between we cannot even see it (when it’s exactly in line).
        kgwgk 1mo ago
        We can see it’s there though - I’d say that also counts.
        hamandcheese 1mo ago
        I believe you were referring to one kind of eclipsed and with my subtle edit I was referring to a different kind of eclipse :)
        kgwgk 1mo ago
        I can think of one single class of eclipse where the Moon is between the Earth and the Sun (the original comment was about “in-between sun and earth”).
        phoghed 1mo ago
        Going to start a conspiracy theory that there’s a secret eclipse where the moon goes behind the sun and they won’t let us see it
        hamandcheese 1mo ago
        Sometimes Earth is the one that is in between.
  - ModernMech 1mo ago
    It tripped me up because I was going by distance. I thought Terra was the base model and Luna was the mid model because it’s further away.
    - 6thbit 1mo ago
      Same here. Thought Luna was for “moonshots” and sol for.. sunshots? While keeping Terra earthly. But alas
ComputerGuru 1mo ago
I think model naming has been atrocious in general, in part because newer "lite" models surpass the capabilities of previous "pro" models (case-in-point: Gemini Flash which now surpasses the capabilities of the latest Gemini Pro, with a newer Flash Lite vying somewhat unsuccessfully for the old Flash price/positioning), but gpt 5.6's Sol/Terra/Luna split is really not bad at all - probably easier to understand than Starbucks' cup sizing! The problem becomes when you add in the adjustable reasoning efforts and you end up with {model, reasoning_effort} combinations that end up completely obviating particular model classes altogether for at least some percentage of queries; e.g. with GPT 5.6 the price/performance Pareto frontier is dominated by permutations of either Luna and Sol, with Terra nowhere to be seen (but then if you need "large model smells" that aren't captured by your benchmark you can't even rely on this, as a model like Luna simply isn't capable of encoding sufficient world knowledge in its weights to perform certain tasks at any reasoning level but you might be able to get away with Terra on low reasoning, but no one seems to be covering this for some reason).
- s3p 1mo ago
  Yes but with gemini specifically they said that pro was still in training. And the comparison isn't really atrocious unless Gemini 3.5 Pro is worse than Gemini 3.5 flash
msdz 1mo ago
Tinfoil hat time: They saw everyone referring to Mythos, and later Fable, as the new “good” models when Anthropic released those, distinguishable from the “regular” Claude (or other companies’ models) for everyone, and didn’t have that distinction for the GPT model family. That’s why the planetary names were introduced.
- usef- 1mo ago
  A simpler explanation is that it's just a better naming system. Calling something "small" might make it sound inferior to competitors. And S/M/L gets awkward as soon as you have more than three sizes. This naming system can get near-infinitely bigger or smaller.

phoghed 1mo ago

Sun, Earth, Moon — it’s basically L/M/S like you want but a little less boring. Why is large better than medium to the average end user of ChatGPT though? I don’t think there’s a way to name these things that will satisfy everyone.

mastercheif 1mo ago
The naming schema actually tripped me up for a week or so. My brain's initial conception of the concepts was earth-relative, so I mapped it as: Sol = big, it's the sun Luna = medium, in-between sun and earth, space Terra = small, terrestrial
- inexcf 1mo ago
  Pretty weird when the moon is as much between earth and sun as the earth is between the moon and the sun.
  - kgwgk 1mo ago
    And when it’s in between we cannot even see it (unless it’s exactly in line).
    - hamandcheese 1mo ago
      And when it’s in between we cannot even see it (when it’s exactly in line).
      - kgwgk 1mo ago
        We can see it’s there though - I’d say that also counts.
        hamandcheese 1mo ago
        I believe you were referring to one kind of eclipsed and with my subtle edit I was referring to a different kind of eclipse :)
        kgwgk 1mo ago
        I can think of one single class of eclipse where the Moon is between the Earth and the Sun (the original comment was about “in-between sun and earth”).
        phoghed 1mo ago
        Going to start a conspiracy theory that there’s a secret eclipse where the moon goes behind the sun and they won’t let us see it
        hamandcheese 1mo ago
        Sometimes Earth is the one that is in between.
- ModernMech 1mo ago
  It tripped me up because I was going by distance. I thought Terra was the base model and Luna was the mid model because it’s further away.
  - 6thbit 1mo ago
    Same here. Thought Luna was for “moonshots” and sol for.. sunshots? While keeping Terra earthly. But alas

ComputerGuru 1mo ago

I think model naming has been atrocious in general, in part because newer "lite" models surpass the capabilities of previous "pro" models (case-in-point: Gemini Flash which now surpasses the capabilities of the latest Gemini Pro, with a newer Flash Lite vying somewhat unsuccessfully for the old Flash price/positioning), but gpt 5.6's Sol/Terra/Luna split is really not bad at all - probably easier to understand than Starbucks' cup sizing! The problem becomes when you add in the adjustable reasoning efforts and you end up with {model, reasoning_effort} combinations that end up completely obviating particular model classes altogether for at least some percentage of queries; e.g. with GPT 5.6 the price/performance Pareto frontier is dominated by permutations of either Luna and Sol, with Terra nowhere to be seen (but then if you need "large model smells" that aren't captured by your benchmark you can't even rely on this, as a model like Luna simply isn't capable of encoding sufficient world knowledge in its weights to perform certain tasks at any reasoning level but you might be able to get away with Terra on low reasoning, but no one seems to be covering this for some reason).

s3p 1mo ago
Yes but with gemini specifically they said that pro was still in training. And the comparison isn't really atrocious unless Gemini 3.5 Pro is worse than Gemini 3.5 flash

msdz 1mo ago

Tinfoil hat time: They saw everyone referring to Mythos, and later Fable, as the new “good” models when Anthropic released those, distinguishable from the “regular” Claude (or other companies’ models) for everyone, and didn’t have that distinction for the GPT model family. That’s why the planetary names were introduced.

usef- 1mo ago
A simpler explanation is that it's just a better naming system. Calling something "small" might make it sound inferior to competitors. And S/M/L gets awkward as soon as you have more than three sizes. This naming system can get near-infinitely bigger or smaller.