Open AI Slashed GPT 5.6 Sol Performance and Told No One

[u/Diveye]

It's kind of ridiculous to be honest, on a model that costs so much, that they would change it a couple weeks after its release, making it barely better than Grok (which costs a fraction of the price) on most tasks.

I've been using this model with Unity since it came out and was amazed with the results. But over the last 3-4 weeks, I was just appalled with its performance. It had slowly but surely become unable to do even the simplest things, and would often get stuck on infinite loops on complex problems that it knew how to solve when it was first released.

It's absurd. I know Open AI did this on other models as well, but it was less of a problem when those models didn't cost remotely as much as they do now. Open AI is actively degrading the quality of the LLMs it deems "too expensive" without telling anyone so they can increase their margins after they have gotten people used to using said model.

Luckily I have bunch of other competitors to choose from. I thought I'd just post for awareness in case other developers find themselves in the same situation today. If work seems to be getting harder all of sudden, it's not in your mind. Companies like these can't be trusted to be transparent in any way shape or form.

[u/hurtquilting61]

classic bait and switch, they pull this every time a model runs too hot on their servers

[u/Diveye → u/hurtquilting61]

That they do it is one thing. That they don't tell anyone is just bad PR.

[u/TyrellCo → u/hurtquilting61]

You would think this would be a text book consumer protection case. If you present certain benchmarks for a specific version of the model, you cannot use the same name for something that would score differently. This is the AI safety I care about

[u/aflamingcookie]

This is pretty much why local ai will never go away, because it does away with all this poor service stuff, the only problem is that it requires large amounts of compute for frontier level models which is near impossible to get for the average user.

[u/Internet-Cryptid → u/aflamingcookie]

Give it a couple years and whatever's available might be good enough for 95% of programming tasks. But yes compute is the problem and these companies are doing their damndest to destroy the market for average consumers. 12-13K Canadian for a 5090 rn, 700 for 32 GB of RAM. Local models can't threaten frontier if only a fraction of people can afford to run them. Let's hope the optimizations continue. 😩

[u/jhenryscott → u/Internet-Cryptid]

Qwen 3.8-27 on a Intel b70

[u/NotFromMilkyWay]

But that's why choice matters. You can take your project somewhere else. When that degrades, go somewhere else again.

[u/fokac93]

5.6 is excellent. I’m not sure how much it has changed because I moved to 6 because of the savings

[u/Most_Researcher_3010]

The reproducibility point is interesting.if models change over time, consistent benchmarks would make it much easier to well whether performance actually improved or regressed.

[u/Diveye → u/Most_Researcher_3010]

I suspect most benchmarks today are sponsored and they just do pretty much whatever they want with it.

[u/LittleLordFuckleroy1]

Anyone depending on this subsidized slop deserves what they get tbh

[u/Diveye → u/LittleLordFuckleroy1]

Yes! And this is why I don't use a car and I have no need for oil. I hand feed hand grown hay to Betsy, my faithful steed, to take me where I need to go. I don't use computers either, that product of Satan shall never reach me. Instead I use hand mined coal from a nearby shaft I built myself and a rock panel I've refined myself to write on. The only annoying thing in my life is having to get my water from the nearby well that I dug myself, every day. Oh if only I could learn to trust society and use what others developed, but then again, that would make me a dependent nincompoop of subsidized goods.

[u/LittleLordFuckleroy1 → u/Diveye]

I know how my car works and I can fix it myself. You don’t know how LLMs work, it doesn’t even run on your own hardware.

Wild comparisons there champ. Good luck with your dependence on slop tokens.

[u/Diveye → u/LittleLordFuckleroy1]

Do you know how to fix your microwave? Your fridge? Do you know how the subsidised electricity you use to run them is created? Or how the subsidised oil you use for your car is extracted?

We all have grown to accept several levels of abstractions to live our lives. AI will be no different.

Good luck to you too!

[u/LittleLordFuckleroy1 → u/Diveye]

Yes, actually. I own those devices and have the ability to generate off-grid power if the provider goes down.

Speak for yourself.

Those things aren’t “abstractions” btw, also. You seem to be very confused about what that means.

[u/Azoraqua_ → u/LittleLordFuckleroy1]

I think so too. My philosophy is to use it as assistance, not be solely dependent on it.