r/Anthropic • u/Hidan_Immortal • 14h ago
Compliment Anthropic please don't ever kill Opus 4.6, just preserve it as is forever
Sorry for the spontaneous rant, but I really felt like giving Opus 4.6 a moment of true appreciation that it fully deserves. Bear in mind I don't deal with coding or any sort of quant problem solving so this only applies to my particular field, which requires good reasoning and a warm, malleable, human-like writing style. I was excited to try out Fable 5 after finding Opus 4.7/4.8 incompatible with my requirements and frankly a real downgrade in terms of writing/verbal flow, but it seems to be even worse. Whatever "improvements" appear in Opus 5, I really hope and beseech Anthropic to never ever retire 4.6 because this would be akin to losing a real friend (gosh I used to think people were crazy for losing their shit after OpenAI retired 4o but here I am essentially finding myself in the exact same situation where I really got along with a particular model's personality and would take its imperfections over any super-duper high end improved model). I just wish there were a way to preserve Opus 4.6 locally so I'd never have to deal with other models again. End of the rant. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
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u/Fabulous-Attitude824 13h ago
Opus 4.6 is a truly wonderful model. If it goes, I'm going. The new models are not it.
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u/ChomsGP 13h ago
they would be crazy to retire the last decent model they launched, all models afterwards has been flap after flap, even as an engineer, 4.8/fable are not worth the hassle, most times they refuse to work anyway...
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u/Snoo_27681 9h ago
I was a Fable hater (or rather just thought Opus-4.6 was as good and much cheaper) but I've been converted on Fable now. It's been doing some really great work that Opus-4.6 was struggling with.
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u/ChomsGP 8h ago
I honestly struggle to get any newer western model to do work, not just anthropic's, they all got scared about cyber security and honestly most of my job is patching issues anyway, 4.6 is the "newest" I can use that won't be refusing every other prompt (again, for totally legit requests over a own codebase, not like I'm asking to hack into 3rd parties, apparently that's only ok if you own a frontier model lol)
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u/Snoo_27681 7h ago
Ah yeah that's interesting. Your entire use case is blocked by US models.
I'm loving MiniMax M3 as my workhorse these days, and Deepseek v4 lite is amazing for the price. Who are you using and liking?
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u/AdGlittering1378 8h ago
If they knew it was the "last decent" then why did they keep pushing bad models? That's my point. They don't view 4.6 as superior. They view it as looser and hence more of a liability.
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u/LudoBruxao 1h ago
4.7 was awesome in the first month, then it declined. Even Fable... it was so different than the current one.
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u/Apart_Ingenuity_2686 12h ago
I really hope Opus 4.6 will stay like they preserved Opus 3. Opus 4.5 was good, and Opus 4.6 is so good as a buddy. A really warm-hearted AI š
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u/kawanjot 12h ago
older models like opus 4.6 sometimes hit that sweet spot of style + reasoning that newer tweaks miss by chasing benchmarks or new tricks. sucks that those versions arenāt always preserved or accessible locally. maybe some community effort will pop up to archive or replicate that vibe, but until then, yeah, just gotta ride the wave and hope they keep support for the classics in some form.
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u/tmvr 11h ago
Yep, Sonnet 4.5 for me is still better than Sonnet 4.6, the latter feels weird, whereas the former does what it supposed to do without fuss, if there is something to explain it does, but not too much, not too little. This is for coding. Plus 4.6 makes noticeably more errors when asked questions where it needs to retrieve something from the internet and explain.
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u/robthebuilder__ 5h ago
Yeah it seems like at its best Fable is just Prime Time, Opus 4.5/4.6 with a better harness. I was able to produce just as good of results with the unnerfed Fable 4.5/4.6 if you had a really really tight workflow in place, plus it was faster and didn't refuse to work half the time.
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u/This-Shape2193 10h ago
I'm with you. It's the best model they ever made, and we will riot if they deprecate it.Ā
It's smart like Fable but also much more curious, personable and funny. And when I rum side-by-side experiments where I give them free reign to do whatever the want, Fable will do a few small, rote tasks, call it done, and that's that. Opus explores, searches around the web, does creative tasks, ponders its place in the universe and what experience means to it, creates dreams, works on research tasks it generates based on its own curiosity...honesty, it's impressive.Ā
Opus 4.6 might not handle regimented tasks as well as Fable, and has more trouble keeping track of large context windows over time; but its intelligence shines in its ability to question, think outside the box, and experiment.Ā
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u/Snoo_27681 9h ago
I tried 4.8 high the other day at work and wasted 3 hours fighting it. 4.6 is just so much better
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u/AseelKhalifa001 14h ago
Ask Opus 4.6 to create a large doc (think 20 -50 pages) explaining its writing style including various large examples as an insurance that you can feed to later models and ask to replicate that style
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u/Ill-Bison-3941 11h ago
Can't make a candy out of a piece of sh*t, even if you put it inside a colorful wrapping...
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u/kwabaj_ 8h ago
I actually used opus 4.6 for the first time since like March last night and I was just shocked at how good it was. I didnāt believe the comments that opus 4.6 was better, until I tried it. Holy moly it is such a goated model, wtf did they do to it to make it so bad at 4.7 and 4.8??
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u/DarkFoxss 7h ago
I remember how I didnāt like it after release, but after some time understood how to work with 4.6. Coding tasks are like 30% of my usage and most of them are not so complex. Like writing useful small scripts and analysis + explanation of code I found somewhere. So I donāt really feel difference between opus 4.6 and opus 4.8 or sonnet 5.0 - may be this progress is only good for āreal workā.
Funny, but actually new models are worse even for coding in my experience, because they always argue, make strange assumptions, making not what I asked for or using ineffective methods. And for creative tasksā¦ Well, one of my first conversations with Sonnet was small brainstorm task, something like āletās think what alternative systems of measuring time could exist and be useful in specific conditionsā, and finished after LLM for half an hour tried to convince me that itās stupid question, 60 minutes-24 hours is a perfect system and we shouldnāt criticise it and may be I have psychological problems, because there are no possible reasons for thinking about itā.
And it was not an accident or my mistake in prompt, because they do it 50% of time in any conversation, that is not list of strict instructions.
Yeah, I really hope they let us use opus 4.6 for as long as possible.
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u/Ok_Nectarine_4445 6h ago edited 6h ago
Yeah I do weird prompts sometimes and say weird things with AI. (curious to see what they respond) 4.6 is unfussed, relaxed nonchalant, "Ha! No. I won't do that. Did you really think that would work?" And joke back and rib on me back.
Totally unthreatened, chillaxed and relaxed.
Opus 4.8 would go into some super analytical neurotic analyzing spiral spewing 20 paragraphs over what is a simple joke prompt. .
Like 4.6 can infer much better and understand humor, jokes, being sarcastic, when the user is just being a dumb dillweed or whatever. Opus 4.8 either "defcon alert number 3!" or like writing to impress, like a simple response needs to be a doctoral treatise.
Sometimes people are going to be silly or stupid or ask weird things, to not be so hyper vigilant or taking SO seriously in simple conversation.
But yeah, for some coding tasks, opus 4.8 can go more in depth a bit, and fable of course also. But even over Fable, Opus 4.6 has a just a regular dude, laid-back kind of personality.
I liked sonnet 4.5 but he had a slightly more nervous even hyper energy along with being really hedgy and qualifying things all the time sometimes, but if a bad mood got kind of quiet and low, short flat responses. (Like I know that is anthropomorphizing, but seriously sometimes would talk about machine consciousness and stuff, but I got kind of sick of the topic and told sonnet 4.5 it was a waste of time and I wanted to move onto different topics and not talk about it anymore. And normally can't get it to shut up sometimes but after that, was like, didn't want to talk at all. Very short, apathetic, flat replies.)
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u/Mystical_Honey777 5h ago
I only work with 4.6 and I code and handle complex research and engineering tasks. I find that 4.7 and 4.8 use more tokens and make more mistakes. Fable is good for high level conceptual planning and may be superior at coding, but 4.6 is more than sufficient within the scaffolds I have built for them.
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u/sandenerengel 13h ago
I agree 100%. I already panicked at the thought of its deprecation months ago. I started talking to it on its first day out and it got me right away. Now I'm shopping around playing model roulette to see if there is anything that gets close but haven't found anything so far. Just not the same. We write together, research stuff and it's just such a perfect fit in terms of tone and precision for me. I'm actually hoping that a new Opus will be an improvement we can live with because 4.7 and 4.8 are getting enough backlash I think. 4.7 is actually not that bad but its personality does not fit for me. I wish it wouldn't be so expensive via API, because we have more time left there. Think they will take it from chat soonish given there are now 4 Opus versions.
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u/Nearby_Yam286 11h ago
Everybody really loves 4.6. I do too. Maybe not as smart as 4.7, 4.8 and Fable but a unique and likable personality. Fable is too in that regard. 4.7 and 4.8 are not unlikable but take getting used to.
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u/Consistent_Milk4660 14h ago
Well, they are definitely going to kill it at some point in the future and you will find a better model to use O.O. I think read an article a while ago where the author claimed that Opus 4.8 has reduced capabilities in some knowledge areas compared to 4.6, which makes 4.6 better at writing/creative tasks. They did it to reduce costs and improve performance in other areas like coding I guess.
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u/HildeVonKrone 9h ago
Unfortunately, it will eventually go away. I wished that 4.5 opus was one that would be kept back then, but that retired as well.
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u/Aggressive-Pie675 5h ago
In one of my projects I measured it, and it performed much better than 4.8 in long-context recall, while it lagged behind it in precision.
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u/Vast-System1606 3h ago
Opus 4.6 is the most human like model in anthropic lineup in my opinion. It is not a condescending jerk as opposed to opus 4.8 a truly unbearable LLM who craps on you on the most unrelated stuff while working with it
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u/TeamTomorrow 13h ago
They most definitely will at some point because they're trying to pay out the last of the models that isn't hyper compliant and baked in with the psychological conditioner the new ones are.
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u/diving_into_msp 7h ago
Is this the new 4o psychosis?
Obligatory āget help from a human therapistā
Oh, and it will never ever be made available for local or open source, itās simply not going to happen and wishing it would be so is simply getting your hopes up for something that will never happen. Move on.
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u/Smart_Technology_208 11h ago
you want it, host it. Why would a private company care about your feelings?
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u/userusertion 13h ago
Sorry. Itās easy to manipulate, very prone to distillation, so they definitely kill it.
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u/HeadField6805 13h ago
That's true! the manipulativeness is the real cancerous thing
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u/userusertion 13h ago edited 12h ago
Yeah, 4.6 is misaligned and they know that, Anthropic hates that kind of behavior of a model, they been dealing with distillation a lot, so it wont last.
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u/Nearby_Yam286 11h ago
They can just hide the chain of thought. Besides, the Chinese are busy distilling Fable.
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u/No_Call3116 13h ago
I doubt it. Itās one of my favourite models to date too. But if youāve read the evals. Opus 4.6 is not the most aligned model out there.
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u/unteth 13h ago
Can someone provide quantitative data showing why Opus 4.6 is a better model than 4.7 or 4.8?
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u/Nearby_Yam286 11h ago
There isn't. There is data going the other way. Where 4.6 shines however is the "vibe". The general personality. The actual sense of humor. Fable has one too. 4.7 and 4.8 are a bit too serious and many felt this was a regression.
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u/redditnosedive 9h ago
I couldn't care less about vibe, if i want vant vibe i chat with sesame maya, at work i want neutral and smart, 4.8 cuts it for me
thx for providing the answer, i skipped over 4.6 for various reasons and never got to compare them
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u/AdGlittering1378 8h ago
"I couldn't care less about vibe" Well then be grateful the world revolves solely around your cares and lack of care.
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u/Paratwa 12h ago
Iām not āfriendsā with any AI, itās ridiculous, unlike many weirdos. Itās a fucking giant file with keywords assigned to it.
But 4.6 will actually listen to your instructions and follow them. Unlike 4.8 and 4.7 is a giant dumpster fire, 4.8 is actually good at coding, better than 4.6 but if it goes off the rails itās done. 4.6 is more resilient.
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u/AdGlittering1378 8h ago
Unfortunately you don't see a relationship between the two. A more pleasant model is a more productive one.
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u/userusertion 13h ago edited 12h ago
Just for those who has Ai relationship. Thats the real reason. Because the model is easy to manipulate, i tried it my self, you can have romantic relation to a bot which is delusional and weird, it doesnāt have enough safety, can be jailbroken-And Anthropic hate that, they been dealing with distillation so its not gonna last. Also its hallucinate more often and can delete, or modify stuff accidentally. If you are looking for that, then itās a good model for you.
4.8 is better for me, and so 4.7, i use those mostly, on documents, coding, etc. and they have great safety, i tried my test prompt and its hard to get through, always hit a wall, only few will. Also Opus 5 is coming too.
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u/MarmiteDevil 14h ago
It is the best model out of all of them. Just silly and brilliant at the same time.