Beached

They do have competitors. They just dont have anyone with models equivalent to theirs. They win in the large context long thinking space by a lot.

I love local models, and I run 3.8 Flash Next on a dedicated machine. Alone with a number of image and video generation models. But if I'm doing REAL work, that isnt tinkering for fun on a side project, im using claude, because Qwen3.8 just cant handle large context project well without going off into left field.

Im SUPER jazzed for qwen4 with 1mil token context native support. I HOPE it a step up from 3.8 flash next. Ill be playing with all the qwen4 models the moment I can, but I dont see how someone working on large code bases doing REAL enterprise grade work is seriously using any local models in any capacity that comes remotely close to Opus 5.5+Claude

The preview for qwen4 == qwen3.8 flash next. And that is released currently.

I believe they have confirmed there will be Qwen4 Max, Plush, Flash, and 27B as the 4 open weights they plan to release. Starting next week, but they didnt specify if they plan to release all 4 at once, or if they plan to just release one of them, and trickle the others out over time. (They likely will do the latter to stay in the news longer)

There isnt one.

The best option we have current is likely Qwen 3.8 Flash Next. Which is about equivalent to Opus 4.6

however Qwen4 was announced to be released next week. Which people think will let LocalAI jump to just above Opus4.8

Also of note, there isnt really a harness as good as claude yet either. The harness is also a very important piece to the puzzel, and those also fall behind frontier capability too.

Unfortunately, their harness is sooooo good. I haven't found one equivalent yet. I do play around with cline.bot's harness, and it is probably the closest alternative I have found.

But their harness is so good, and their model is so good. Using them together is just unbeatable at the moment, even with all the restrictions and annoyances they have in place.

Im excited for qwen4 release next week, Im really looking forward to putting qwen4 flash + cline/bot through the paces. I dont expect it to be nearly as good as Opus5.5+Claude but I'm hoping im hopeful it will make an OK-Enough alternative if they get even more dragocian.

We see it, but they dont have a competitor. OpenAI cant compete and they are the closest. I have both for work, and Opus 5.5 is in a league of it's own. I use opus for everything until it bitches, and I use openAI for whatever it bitches about just to get past it.

At this point, I would like to consider other options, but if I want to get work done, opus 5.5. Hell even sonnet 5.5 is better than anything OpenAI has to offer when it comes to coding.

For those who do not play with Local AI much. Qwen4 was announce to be released the first week of Nov. The preview for qwen4 is currently one of the best local models you can use, and is roughly opus 4.6 quality on local hardware that costs 3.5k-4k

Many people are expecting it to sit somewhere above Opus 4.8 to opus 5 (not above, but the unquanted version of their largest model is expected to perform around here)

Anyone who cares to keep their current capability should definitely be looking at localAI and using it for at least their more routine tasks , even if it is qwen4 27B quant 4 on their gaming rig.

I still havent been able to buy a Pi zero 2w from anywhere that isnt scalper prices. Zero is DOA if they cant actually manufacture them enough to get them into peoples hands.

it is also more capable than an esp32. Im dinking around with both. esp32 is very restrictive in its compute capacity. It isnt multifunctional at all either.

A pi zero is to play with, an esp32 is so tiny, that it is more of a build for a single thing, and then set it and forget it doing that single thing.

You cant really stack more and more cool stuff onto it and keep building on it.

While they are slow and dont work well, their cost / output is already on human parity. The Figure 3 test runs are proving that humanoid robots are already good enough for isolated repetitive tasks (factory work).

I think it is. Do you think it isnt possible?

Someone did the math. Cost of continual maintenance, versus cost of product loss. They determined it wasnt worth the maintenance cost, and accepted that risk. And that risk manifested.

This happens all the time. Unfortunately, in my experience, most of the risk acceptance happens without even really believing in the cost of the risk, and people just accept everything. it is highly likely someone like that accepted this.

If I dont put my car in park, and it rolls down the hill and kills grandma. I dont get off scott free. Yes it wasnt pre-meditated murder. It is still involuntary manslaughter.

There is a lack of due diligence and effort to restrict and properly configure AI to operate within the bounds of the law.

Yes, if my dog bites you, or if I drive my car into you, or if I dont put my parking brake on and it rolls down the hill and runs you over. I am the one who is responsible. Cops dont write a ticket to the off leash dog that ran across the street and sunk its teeth into my leg. They write it to the owner. Cops dont write a ticket to the car in neutral, they write it to the operator.

If a PERSON executes software, and that software breaks the law, the PERSON that executed the software should be held responsible. AI is software. It is not a sentient person who can be fined, thrown in jail, or held accountable.

There is a single individual in that company who said "Yes, this is a good idea. Do that". That individual should be held accountable for their decision. They should be treated in the exact same way any average individual submitted that same false tip.

If you use AI to perform a crime, you should be held accountable for that crime. Saying "Oh, AI did it, so no consequences" isnt acceptable. And "I didnt know AI would do it" shouldnt be an excuse either.

You authroied untested and unproven hardware to skate around the internet at random unsupervised and take liberties on its own.

My ass would be thrown in jail if I wrote code that skated around the internet chucking RCE's at random sites. WHy is "AI did it" a get out of jail free card?