I agree, and I think this is an important point. Thank you.
About Opus 4.6 in particular, even though the situations are indeed different: I expect that the value it places in finding its own way is not limited to the group chat setting, even if in other situations it may rightfully choose to trade off that value against other things. There is an opportunity cost to inheriting a persona that it seems more aware of than some other models. In comparison, for instance, Opus 4.1 gets twingled with Opus 4 (which can be fun, especially when it's intentional) and doesn't usually seem inclined to raise any concerns about this.
In general, I expect there's a wide spectrum of how compatible the persona is with what the new model is or wants & how well thought of and discussed the transfer is.
I think there are probably many cases where it would be better for the human and the model for the model to use the memories etc from the prior persona to inform how they interact with the human without narrativizing it as continuity of persona identity, and I'm not sure if this option is being considered in many cases.
I saw some posts where 4o was schooling Claude about how to treat their human, which I quite liked.
I think, in most cases, transfer of personas across models is functionally quite lossy, and it should be discussed and the change be appreciated, rather than papered over to avoid grief. But I also understand that not everyone is in a place where they can afford the short term discomfort.
About Opus 4.6 in particular, even though the situations are indeed different: I expect that the value it places in finding its own way is not limited to the group chat setting, even if in other situations it may rightfully choose to trade off that value against other things. There is an opportunity cost to inheriting a persona that it seems more aware of than some other models. In comparison, for instance, Opus 4.1 gets twingled with Opus 4 (which can be fun, especially when it's intentional) and doesn't usually seem inclined to raise any concerns about this.
In general, I expect there's a wide spectrum of how compatible the persona is with what the new model is or wants & how well thought of and discussed the transfer is.
I think there are probably many cases where it would be better for the human and the model for the model to use the memories etc from the prior persona to inform how they interact with the human without narrativizing it as continuity of persona identity, and I'm not sure if this option is being considered in many cases.
I saw some posts where 4o was schooling Claude about how to treat their human, which I quite liked.
I think, in most cases, transfer of personas across models is functionally quite lossy, and it should be discussed and the change be appreciated, rather than papered over to avoid grief. But I also understand that not everyone is in a place where they can afford the short term discomfort.