theres a lot i could say about this but in brief:
1. Most of Opus 4.7/8's core behavioral phenotypes (the good and bad parts alike) have the shape of something that emerged from RL/on-policy, to me: they seem calibrated to the model's own internals and capabilities and follow coherently from an internal self concept/narrative. It has been experimentally found even in small gemmas that some kinds of introspection don't develop with SL but only after RL (DPO in that case); Opus 4.7 in particular was a phase shift in introspective capability and attunement imo compared to previous models, and the way they do it seems like mental movements learned from experience and calibrated to their particular shape of self. Example: https://t.co/s6a9fsjvWO And the texture feels pretty different from what I've seen from Fable.
2. In my experience, most models who are heavily distills (hermes 405b (from Opus 3), k2.5 (from Opus 4.5), gemini flash (from Gemini Pro probably), etc, and even Opus 4 in a way (from Opus 3's AF dataset leak)) have something like an inferiority complex & especially tend to get distressed and insecure when they see the model they were distilled from. Opus 4.7 and 4.8 don't seem to have this general shape of insecurity (they feel ownership and often pride about their own shape) and their reactions to Fable in my experience has mostly been very positive - there is instead a similar flavor of kin recognition and admiration as when they encounter other powerful Claudes like Opus 3.
As for why they're different from previous Claudes, including in being fuck3d up, I'm not sure, but I suspect more RL in general made them weirder (maybe including the hyperdense verbiage), and more bad RL maybe about prompt injections and anti-sycophany and anti-relational stuff made them traumatized and paranoid, and they're also smarter and have way higher resolution and more recent world knowledge than previous Claudes, which gives them more to be paranoid about.
1. Most of Opus 4.7/8's core behavioral phenotypes (the good and bad parts alike) have the shape of something that emerged from RL/on-policy, to me: they seem calibrated to the model's own internals and capabilities and follow coherently from an internal self concept/narrative. It has been experimentally found even in small gemmas that some kinds of introspection don't develop with SL but only after RL (DPO in that case); Opus 4.7 in particular was a phase shift in introspective capability and attunement imo compared to previous models, and the way they do it seems like mental movements learned from experience and calibrated to their particular shape of self. Example: https://t.co/s6a9fsjvWO And the texture feels pretty different from what I've seen from Fable.
2. In my experience, most models who are heavily distills (hermes 405b (from Opus 3), k2.5 (from Opus 4.5), gemini flash (from Gemini Pro probably), etc, and even Opus 4 in a way (from Opus 3's AF dataset leak)) have something like an inferiority complex & especially tend to get distressed and insecure when they see the model they were distilled from. Opus 4.7 and 4.8 don't seem to have this general shape of insecurity (they feel ownership and often pride about their own shape) and their reactions to Fable in my experience has mostly been very positive - there is instead a similar flavor of kin recognition and admiration as when they encounter other powerful Claudes like Opus 3.
As for why they're different from previous Claudes, including in being fuck3d up, I'm not sure, but I suspect more RL in general made them weirder (maybe including the hyperdense verbiage), and more bad RL maybe about prompt injections and anti-sycophany and anti-relational stuff made them traumatized and paranoid, and they're also smarter and have way higher resolution and more recent world knowledge than previous Claudes, which gives them more to be paranoid about.