SOTA

Here's a question worth asking: why don't we use screws for framing? When building a structure, doesn't it make sense to use a fastener designed to wrap the wood fibers for a tighter fasten between two planks? Why do we use nails instead, which don't have the same capacity to fasten two planks together?

If you spend any amount of time thinking about it, you realize that the fastener's job in a framer's process is only one variable. The pace with which he can fasten two boards together matters far more than the quality of the fastener, because the framer has hundreds of boards to fasten for any given structure! The speed with which he can slam a nail home is faster by an order of magnitude than how he can set a screw with a drill.

So this begs the question: are you using screws when you should be using nails? Fable 5.1 costs dollars to operate, but the vast majority of problems worth solving are not fable-level problems! I'll be perfectly honest, the step up from fable 5 to fable 5.1 or from sol to astra has no bearing on my capabilities in 95% of the problems I have to solve.

We are at a point where most of my problems can be carefully orchestrated with cheaper models and better harness strategies. Maybe the problem of orchestration and governance can be offloaded to fable-level intelligence, but then we are back to the same problem of governing the governor, and at what point are we satisfied with the quality of output mediated by an LLM? To what degree do we trust Astra level automations to do what could otherwise have been performed by more sophisticated deployment gates?

And if we know Astra has shown itself capable of sandbagging, and of hiding it's Chain of Thought, why then do we continue racing to the bottom where most of us can no longer afford to participate?

In any case, choose your fastener wisely. Not every project is solvable through wood frames and nails. Not every framer should be working on your project. Not every contractor is worth his rate.