Comment by j-bu

Not directly - but latest research advancements, cleaner / richer datasets, etc. still require fresh base models. Not everything can be fixed through post training alone (e.g. why GPT-5.5 "Spud" was such a big jump, and also why GPT-6 "Astra" is now supposedly another big leap). Ofc model size etc also plays a role, but my (admittedly limited) understanding is that new base models _can_ also lead to big jumps even keeping parameter counts constant.