Hacker News: AstroBen

New comment by AstroBen in "ChatGPT Pro now starts at $100/month"

AstroBen — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 18:36:14 +0000

Surely they weren't trying to be deceptive... surely.

New comment by AstroBen in "ChatGPT Pro now starts at $100/month"

AstroBen — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 18:18:23 +0000

seems like this $100 replaced the $200 plan

So.. cheaper?

New comment by AstroBen in "I Let Claude Code Autonomously Run Ads for a Month"

AstroBen — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 18:03:53 +0000

without a human control how do I put these results into context? It doesn't matter that they "hoped" for $2.50/lead

New comment by AstroBen in "System Card: Claude Mythos Preview [pdf]"

AstroBen — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 17:02:36 +0000

This was due to Claude Code the agent harness. 4.6 was trained to use tools and operate in an agent environment. This is different from there being a huge bump in the underlying model's intelligence.

The takeaway here I think is that the "breakthrough" already happened and we can't extrapolate further out from it.

New comment by AstroBen in "System Card: Claude Mythos Preview [pdf]"

AstroBen — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 16:58:25 +0000

> Programming is only a part of the job devs are doing.

Programming is a huge part of the job. In a world where AI does the programming we're going to need 80% fewer software professionals.

It won't be a full replacement of the role, you're correct there - but it'll be a major downsizing because of productivity gains.

New comment by AstroBen in "System Card: Claude Mythos Preview [pdf]"

AstroBen — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 15:37:15 +0000

Right, and that's why it's only part of the job. The benchmarks they're currently doing compose of the AI being handed a detailed spec + tests to make pass which isn't really what developing a feature looks like.

Going from fuzzy under-defined spec to something well defined isn't solved.

Going from well defined spec to verification criteria also isn't.

Once those are in place though, we get https://vinext.io - which from what I understand they largely vibe-coded by using NextJS's test suite.

> First one that comes to mind is that 100% code coverage in tests means that software is perfect

I agree.. but I'm also not sure if software needs to be perfect

New comment by AstroBen in "System Card: Claude Mythos Preview [pdf]"

AstroBen — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 04:14:15 +0000

> If it can replace SWEs, then there's no reason why it can't replace say, a lawyer

SWE is unique in that for part of the job it's possible to set up automated verification for correct output - so you can train a model to be better at it. I don't think that exists in law or even most other work.

New comment by AstroBen in "System Card: Claude Mythos Preview [pdf]"

AstroBen — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 22:16:48 +0000

Everyone wouldn't starve in a few months. There is more than enough food and I have faith it'd be given out. The starvation we see today in a world where most genuinely have a chance to get out of it is nothing like a world in which people can't earn an income.

The government only has as much power as they are given and can defend, and the only way I could see that happening is via automated weapons controlled by a few- which at this point aren't enough to stop everyone. What army is going to purge their own people? Most humans aren't psychopaths.

I think it'd end in a painful transition period of "take care of the people in a just system or we'll destroy your infrastructure".

New comment by AstroBen in "System Card: Claude Mythos Preview [pdf]"

AstroBen — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 20:07:46 +0000

It seems inevitable that costs will come down over time. Expensive models today will be cheap models in a few years.

New comment by AstroBen in "System Card: Claude Mythos Preview [pdf]"

AstroBen — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 19:36:23 +0000

Of course it's what they're going for. If they could do it they'd replace all human labor - unfortunately it's looking like SWE might be the easiest of the bunch.

The weirdest thing to me is how many working SWEs are actively supporting them in the mission.

New comment by AstroBen in "Sam Altman may control our future – can he be trusted?"

AstroBen — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 03:47:18 +0000

Our DNA does contain our pre-training, though. It's not true that we're an entirely blank slate.

New comment by AstroBen in "The cult of vibe coding is dogfooding run amok"

AstroBen — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 20:53:01 +0000

It's not subjective at all. It's not art.

Code quality = less bugs long term.

Code quality = faster iteration and easier maintenance.

If things are bad enough it becomes borderline impossible to add features.

Users absolutely care about these things.

New comment by AstroBen in "The cult of vibe coding is dogfooding run amok"

AstroBen — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 20:07:33 +0000

The difference here is that everyone else in this product category are also sprinting full steam ahead trying to get as many users as they can

If they DIDN'T heavily vibe-code it they might fall behind. Speed of implementation short term might beat out long-term maintenance and iteration they'd get from quality code

They're just taking on massive tech debt

New comment by AstroBen in "The cult of vibe coding is dogfooding run amok"

AstroBen — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 20:02:37 +0000

> it doesn't really matter in the end

if you have one of the top models in a disruptive new product category where everyone else is sprinting also, sure..

New comment by AstroBen in "The cult of vibe coding is dogfooding run amok"

AstroBen — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 19:32:46 +0000

99.999999% of products can't get away with what Anthropic is able to - this is a one in a billion disruptive product with minimal competition, and its success so far is mostly due to Claude the model, not the agent harness

New comment by AstroBen in "Ask HN: Where are all the disruptive software that AI promised?"

AstroBen — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 17:35:28 +0000

Strange, even

New comment by AstroBen in "I Won't Download Your App. The Web Version Is A-OK"

AstroBen — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 16:03:16 +0000

Do you really think developers are going through the hellish pain of dealing with Google and Apple for no reason? Real world users prefer and expect apps as opposed to web versions for many product categories.

New comment by AstroBen in "Codex pricing to align with API token usage, instead of per-message"

AstroBen — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 17:41:52 +0000

Kimi K2.5 (as an example) is an open model with 1T params. I don't see a reason it has to be local for most use cases- the fact that it's open is what's important.

New comment by AstroBen in "Codex pricing to align with API token usage, instead of per-message"

AstroBen — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 17:38:17 +0000

Unfortunately the fools holding the bag are going to be those who own index funds when these companies are inserted into them.

New comment by AstroBen in "Codex pricing to align with API token usage, instead of per-message"

AstroBen — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 17:08:02 +0000

Things must be bad if they're doing this before their IPO