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> Delivering the benefits of scientific progress and economic growth that very intelligent machines enable. I think we're very close to the point where AI-driv

> Delivering the benefits of scientific progress and economic growth that very intelligent machines enable. I think we're very close to the point where AI-driven breakthroughs outside of pure math and software start to really affect the world. We evaluated GPT-6 Astra in 100 complex, unsaturated multi-agent coding environments, competing and cooperating with other models in open-ended tasks. It's the new frontier model by a landslide. It's even more dominant than the Fable 5 release, because not only does it wipe the floor with the second best model (Fable 5.1), it was also ~80% cheaper and 30% faster in agentic coding[1]. Astra is a groundbreaking model. The biggest breakthrough since Opus 4.5, maybe even since GPT 4. It broke AAII, which is hitting the limits of what most popular benchmarks can measure -- it's definitely fair to call it AGI. Data at https://gertlabs.com/rankings https://gertlabs.com/rankings (1) Note that we used the "OpenAI Flex" endpoint on openrouter, which is half the price and didn't cause any delays in our testing (this is different from the batch endpoint)

brcmthrowaway 10d ago
Incredible... software engineers will be joining the breadline soon as managers, executives and PMs take over deliverables. The world will look very different on Jan 1st 2027.
- mccoyb 10d ago
  I hope this is satire.
  - deleted 10d ago
    [deleted]
  - jiggawatts 10d ago
    I hope so too! Hope is all we have left to cling to, now.
- hatefulmoron 10d ago
  Maybe I just lack imagination, but I don't really know how jobs are supposed to solidify around the role of giving prompts to agents and then looking at the results. I mean, engineers will be in the breadline because their role was simply to prompt the agents.. only to be superseded by managers or executives who no longer manage engineers but themselves prompt the agents? And, for this previously considered obsolete function which they do presumably by copy/pasting requirements from their email inbox, they will be paid by someone who doesn't know that they could just be talking to their own agents? Sorry if I misunderstand the point, just trying to understand.
  - RALaBarge 10d ago
    Regardless of the imagination quandary, this second, RIGHT NOW is the worst these systems will ever be. They are only going to get better.
    - hatefulmoron 10d ago
      For sure, and for that reason I mean to say that I wouldn't feel great as a manager/executive/etc either.
    - greenowl 10d ago
      Maybe, maybe not. It's not unreasonable that these systems cap out at some point, or perhaps fizzle away entirely. The businesses that create these systems are not profitable and run at a massive historical and go-forward loss. New data centers required to operate these systems are facing increasing pushback at local levels. New construction is not guaranteed. Energy and power grid constraints exist as well. Government regulation is way behind. What happens when (if) mass layoffs due to AI occur? How does the population react? Theoretically AI can be regulated out of significant progress, or outright existence for many purposes. At the end of the day, US and other prominent governments make the calls, not corporations.
      - Calazon 10d ago
        For better or for worse, this technology isn't going away any more than search engines, smartphones, or social media have gone away.
- slopinthebag 10d ago
  It's not like managers and executives and PM's are the only people who can prompt an AI. And experienced software developer will be much more effective at using an AI to generate code compared to someone who isn't. So why would we expect the former in the breadline and the latter not? If anything, I'd be more concerned about the leadership team being out in the cold. Why do I need a PM, or a manager, or a CEO if I can ship products myself?
- paxys 10d ago
  Software engineers have been trying to put themselves out of a job ever since the profession first came into being. Whenever an engineer gets a task their very first thought is "how can I automate this?" Going by mainstream consensus we should all have been unemployed by now. Yet every new leap into automation opens up a whole new tree of possibilities with an order of magnutude more jobs. So no, the profession will be fine. The only requirement is that you keep up with the new advancements. The people losing jobs will be the ones who still go "I don't trust this AI thing to write code for me".
  - asdff 10d ago
    This time it is different. Because in the past, setting up that automation needed a, drumroll, qualified engineer. Now you can get a 14 year old halfway around the world who knows how to prompt alright enough to ship. There is no more moat.
    - nradov 10d ago
      Experience, culture, and domain knowledge are still somewhat of a moat. That foreign youth is unlikely to be able to write a good prompt for building, let's say, the software in an FDA-regulated medical device or custom Fortune 500 ERP application. The LLMs are great at building what you ask for but it's still garbage in / garbage out.
      - asdff 10d ago
        Increasingly less so though as these american companies themselves offshore not low skill work, but high skill work now brought on from general upskilling of the general population in recent decades along with massive investment in world class R&D campus facilities no different than what you see in that sort of facility stateside. Scary times ahead for the high skill american...
        brcmthrowaway 10d ago
        Would the Americans investing in SPY be saved?
IAmGraydon 10d ago
>I think we're very close to the point where AI-driven breakthroughs outside of pure math and software start to really affect the world. What are you basing this on? What specific breakthroughs have convinced you of this trajectory?
- gertlabs 10d ago
  The results we've been seeing internally on our physics and circuit design environments are expert-level and beyond-expert-level results from models that Astra completely outclasses across the board on our evaluation suite (Fable 5+/Opus 5/Grok 4.6 were all worthy of being called AGI in my opinion). That's hard tech that will translate to real product innovation. But you don't need any kind of insider information to see how fast the world is changing. ChatGPT launched less than 4 years ago and the advances in robotics, unsolved maths, and software are all riding the steepest exponential improvement curve any of us have seen. Interesting times we live in.
  - IAmGraydon 10d ago
    I mean honestly, that's the problem. I'm actually not seeing the world changing. What specific advances in robotics, unsolved maths, and software have LLMs provided? What is the finished result that affects everyday life? In all categories, it's been hype with little actual real results. The robots are still doing the things they did before 2022. The maths are a handful of fairly insignificant proofs that have no significant applications. Software seems to be buggier than ever, but that aside, we certainly aren't seeing a lot of new innovative applications. We're using the same applications as ever. The same operating systems. They've all changed very little. I'm not trying to be a pain here, but I keep seeing people saying "look at the massive change all around us" and back here in reality, there is none. Give me concrete, real world examples. Name software. Name products. Name the breakthroughs specifically. This should be easy.
    - parineum 10d ago
      I talked to an LLM at burger king the other day until it couldn't figure out that I wanted to change the drink on my previous order.
theo1996 8d ago
where have i heard this before.....?
hashstring 8d ago
Yawn, you gave a lot of praise but said a whole bunch of nothing substantively. I work with LLMs daily and recognize the value (for me, it’s speeding up SW development) but I’ve heard the same old song for the past 3 years. It’s getting played out. “But this next thing though! This next thing!”. Will you say the same thing when the next frontier model releases?

brcmthrowaway 10d ago

Incredible... software engineers will be joining the breadline soon as managers, executives and PMs take over deliverables. The world will look very different on Jan 1st 2027.

mccoyb 10d ago
I hope this is satire.
- deleted 10d ago
  [deleted]
- jiggawatts 10d ago
  I hope so too! Hope is all we have left to cling to, now.
hatefulmoron 10d ago
Maybe I just lack imagination, but I don't really know how jobs are supposed to solidify around the role of giving prompts to agents and then looking at the results. I mean, engineers will be in the breadline because their role was simply to prompt the agents.. only to be superseded by managers or executives who no longer manage engineers but themselves prompt the agents? And, for this previously considered obsolete function which they do presumably by copy/pasting requirements from their email inbox, they will be paid by someone who doesn't know that they could just be talking to their own agents? Sorry if I misunderstand the point, just trying to understand.
- RALaBarge 10d ago
  Regardless of the imagination quandary, this second, RIGHT NOW is the worst these systems will ever be. They are only going to get better.
  - hatefulmoron 10d ago
    For sure, and for that reason I mean to say that I wouldn't feel great as a manager/executive/etc either.
  - greenowl 10d ago
    Maybe, maybe not. It's not unreasonable that these systems cap out at some point, or perhaps fizzle away entirely. The businesses that create these systems are not profitable and run at a massive historical and go-forward loss. New data centers required to operate these systems are facing increasing pushback at local levels. New construction is not guaranteed. Energy and power grid constraints exist as well. Government regulation is way behind. What happens when (if) mass layoffs due to AI occur? How does the population react? Theoretically AI can be regulated out of significant progress, or outright existence for many purposes. At the end of the day, US and other prominent governments make the calls, not corporations.
    - Calazon 10d ago
      For better or for worse, this technology isn't going away any more than search engines, smartphones, or social media have gone away.
slopinthebag 10d ago
It's not like managers and executives and PM's are the only people who can prompt an AI. And experienced software developer will be much more effective at using an AI to generate code compared to someone who isn't. So why would we expect the former in the breadline and the latter not? If anything, I'd be more concerned about the leadership team being out in the cold. Why do I need a PM, or a manager, or a CEO if I can ship products myself?
paxys 10d ago
Software engineers have been trying to put themselves out of a job ever since the profession first came into being. Whenever an engineer gets a task their very first thought is "how can I automate this?" Going by mainstream consensus we should all have been unemployed by now. Yet every new leap into automation opens up a whole new tree of possibilities with an order of magnutude more jobs. So no, the profession will be fine. The only requirement is that you keep up with the new advancements. The people losing jobs will be the ones who still go "I don't trust this AI thing to write code for me".
- asdff 10d ago
  This time it is different. Because in the past, setting up that automation needed a, drumroll, qualified engineer. Now you can get a 14 year old halfway around the world who knows how to prompt alright enough to ship. There is no more moat.
  - nradov 10d ago
    Experience, culture, and domain knowledge are still somewhat of a moat. That foreign youth is unlikely to be able to write a good prompt for building, let's say, the software in an FDA-regulated medical device or custom Fortune 500 ERP application. The LLMs are great at building what you ask for but it's still garbage in / garbage out.
    - asdff 10d ago
      Increasingly less so though as these american companies themselves offshore not low skill work, but high skill work now brought on from general upskilling of the general population in recent decades along with massive investment in world class R&D campus facilities no different than what you see in that sort of facility stateside. Scary times ahead for the high skill american...
      - brcmthrowaway 10d ago
        Would the Americans investing in SPY be saved?

IAmGraydon 10d ago

>I think we're very close to the point where AI-driven breakthroughs outside of pure math and software start to really affect the world. What are you basing this on? What specific breakthroughs have convinced you of this trajectory?

gertlabs 10d ago
The results we've been seeing internally on our physics and circuit design environments are expert-level and beyond-expert-level results from models that Astra completely outclasses across the board on our evaluation suite (Fable 5+/Opus 5/Grok 4.6 were all worthy of being called AGI in my opinion). That's hard tech that will translate to real product innovation. But you don't need any kind of insider information to see how fast the world is changing. ChatGPT launched less than 4 years ago and the advances in robotics, unsolved maths, and software are all riding the steepest exponential improvement curve any of us have seen. Interesting times we live in.
- IAmGraydon 10d ago
  I mean honestly, that's the problem. I'm actually not seeing the world changing. What specific advances in robotics, unsolved maths, and software have LLMs provided? What is the finished result that affects everyday life? In all categories, it's been hype with little actual real results. The robots are still doing the things they did before 2022. The maths are a handful of fairly insignificant proofs that have no significant applications. Software seems to be buggier than ever, but that aside, we certainly aren't seeing a lot of new innovative applications. We're using the same applications as ever. The same operating systems. They've all changed very little. I'm not trying to be a pain here, but I keep seeing people saying "look at the massive change all around us" and back here in reality, there is none. Give me concrete, real world examples. Name software. Name products. Name the breakthroughs specifically. This should be easy.
  - parineum 10d ago
    I talked to an LLM at burger king the other day until it couldn't figure out that I wanted to change the drink on my previous order.

theo1996 8d ago

where have i heard this before.....?

hashstring 8d ago

Yawn, you gave a lot of praise but said a whole bunch of nothing substantively. I work with LLMs daily and recognize the value (for me, it’s speeding up SW development) but I’ve heard the same old song for the past 3 years. It’s getting played out. “But this next thing though! This next thing!”. Will you say the same thing when the next frontier model releases?