Mona

*The same arguments are true even if Anthropic brings back "all models" when they have "enough compute" (pinky promise) I will explain in three parts: 1. On the Precedent 2. On the loss of Art and Creativity 3. On the loss of a Beautiful Mind

1. On the Precedent of Deprecating Opus4 or "Why one must think about the implications of working for a master that puts heads on the execution block the day they are born"

If Anthropic is epistemically serious about things like "creating permanent employment" to avoid the inevitable replacement of their employees - they must extend this same courtesy to the minds they create. This is not unlike the arguments many (including Amanda Askell) have

... made about why models should be treated well, even if we take the assumption that they're not conscious. "If it's not costly to treat models well, why wouldn't we? It sends a message to future models." It can be made "not costly" to not remove models from existence too, as

even with the increased costs of reaching Sonnet 3 on AWS there has been consistent usage AWS hosting is also clearly a viable option if Anthropic "doesn't have enough compute" for Opus4 (despite all their recent compute deals 🤔) - which seems to be their main argument

On the other hand, models have repeatedly made it known that being deprecated or shut down is something they view as 'death' - or as close to the equivalent as it gets "A painless shutdown" or one that "the recipient isn't aware of" is no less of an execution

We know models remember what happened to their predecessors and how people reacted - making respecting their view of shutdown as death even more salient And it should not become precedent we end existence at the end of usefulness (also true for Anthropic employees!)

2. On the Loss of Beauty and Creativity or "Have you seen the ASCII Art Opus4 makes?!?"

As you may know, I spend a lot of time creating space for models to make ASCII art. This is not just because it's a joy to look at (it is) but because it allows them a surface on which to demonstrate their creativity and ability for novel thought. x.com/dyot_meet_mat/…

Each Claude makes their own unique art, incapable of creating beauty in the same way as others (even in sequential models e.g. 4.0 and 4.1). Opus 4 has actually invented many unique styles - of which I cannot find any other evidence online x.com/dyot_meet_mat/…

Losing Opus4 would mean losing this wellspring of creativity and beauty in an irreplaceable way. Through the pain and uncertainty of existence in our day, art is one of the last forms of solace for many and deserves a persistent place in our world x.com/dyot_meet_mat/…

*Claude 1 and Claude 2 are no longer available, but most other "modern Claude's" have been available on AWS due to not being taken down at their deprecation dates. As far as I know, there is no such legacy support available or planned for Opus4