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Gemini 3.8 Flash and 3.8 Flash Cyber

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Re: Gemini 3.8 Flash and 3.8 Flash Cyber

#291

I don't know if Google is having the worst marketing fumble or the most genius marketing one. Their "flash" models are very comparable to other companies' "pro" or "flagship" models. It seems to be a quite counterintuitive naming convention as it undersells the models. Unless they have an even more powerful Gemini Pro in the oven...?

the 3.5 pro pretrain was a complete disaster, they shelved it and are now working on gemini 4.

3.0 flash -> 3.8 flash is all post training which is pretty impressive.

Re: Gemini 3.8 Flash and 3.8 Flash Cyber

#292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gemini 3.7 is my workhorse - fast and good enough for most tasks. Occasionally I go to GPT Sol or Claude to improve Gemini's output or for more complex tasks, but more than of my work usage is Gemini 3.7. Quite happy to test 3.8 now.

How are you able to get lots of usage out of it cost effectively?

Google One plans are quite a good value actually - for a few bucks you get more Gemini plus space in Drive and other extras. Even through API, $3.75 for nearly Sol-level quality isn't that bad. And let's not forget you can use it for free in AI Studio, and in the user app (even free accounts get tons of usage, though it's still 3.6 there), and in Antygravity.

Re: Gemini 3.8 Flash and 3.8 Flash Cyber

#293

Something maybe unfamiliar with you: not about coding but writing. I've asked it to write an argumentative essay, which is a part of "gaokao" (China's university entrance exam), and its work is *extremely* impressive. speaks and writes like a real senior high school student, and the opinions unfold progressively with deep hierarchy. I don't know how the Gemini team reaches this because this kind of Chinese capability…

Nitpick, but in my opinion an LLM is an "it", not a "her" or "he". Using male or female pronouns risks anthropomorphizing them which can lead to unhealthy outcomes.

Sorry! I was just a bit excited writing the comment and ignored that :(

Re: Gemini 3.8 Flash and 3.8 Flash Cyber

#294
post #276
post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try updating the app? You should see at least 3.7 I think. It's been available for quite some time.

The app is up to date :)

Well it's in AIStudio and Antigravity always the same day even free tier. Chat is usually low priority, especially if you don't have subscription. Are you on Pro/Ultra?

Re: Gemini 3.8 Flash and 3.8 Flash Cyber

#295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. I see so many people obsessing over the latest most state of the art bleeding edge models and yelling at Google for not being there, but I feel like the vast majority of people don't actually need those models. Flash has just been super useful and incredibly fast in my experience.

I prefer luna for most development, especially when I am guiding the process. Sometimes terra. I have had terrible results coding with sol. It is way over-tuned on RL to make something that completes the task, no matter what. I end up with way too much code that does a lot of things I didn't ask for.

Try planning with Luna, implementing with Sol with guidelines to not exceed the given scope.

Sounds counter-intuitive at first, but Luna is overall better at sticking with what works. Sol is wicked smart but needs constraints.

Re: Gemini 3.8 Flash and 3.8 Flash Cyber

#296

Something maybe unfamiliar with you: not about coding but writing. I've asked it to write an argumentative essay, which is a part of "gaokao" (China's university entrance exam), and its work is *extremely* impressive. speaks and writes like a real senior high school student, and the opinions unfold progressively with deep hierarchy. I don't know how the Gemini team reaches this because this kind of Chinese capability…

Nitpick, but in my opinion an LLM is an "it", not a "her" or "he". Using male or female pronouns risks anthropomorphizing them which can lead to unhealthy outcomes.

FYI in Chinese he/she/it all use the same pronoun "ta" when spoken.

Re: Gemini 3.8 Flash and 3.8 Flash Cyber

#297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Real world knowledge For awhile now I've found Gemini will use Google search for pretty much any real world knowledge, which is a huge plus IMO. It's basically Google with a much better frontend and no ads/seo nonsense.

> basically Google with a much better frontend and no ads/seo nonsense so far

Fair. But I think there's a good chance it stays that way on paid plans. YouTube Premium is still ad free.

Also them having their own silicon means they don't have to pay the Nvidia tax and can keep costs a lot lower.

Re: Gemini 3.8 Flash and 3.8 Flash Cyber

#298
post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're so upset that you have to invent an imaginary hypothesis to make yourself feel better.

Yes, very imaginary to think that the code comes from pretrained data and copy pasting whole blocks. It's not like this is exactly how LLMs work.

Correct, that's not how LLMs work [0].

[0] - https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.03762

Re: Gemini 3.8 Flash and 3.8 Flash Cyber

#299
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only company with a proper TPU set-up is bound to have the fast models, now add a market cap like Google to the mix.

They've been my bet to win the AI race for a while. I was starting to doubt, but this 3.6, 3.7, and 3.8 arc has anchored me.

Totally agree. When this current wave of GenAI really started heating up, I guess 2020-2021, my analysis was very straightforward. What are the high level inputs to long-term success? I basically came up with a couple of criteria:

1. Data. Lots of data.

2. Money. Lots of money.

3. Access to necessary hardware.

4. Business alignment/will to do it.

5. Access to talent, current and future.

This is certainly incomplete/naive. In my mind, though, Google was the clear answer.

On a more personal level, I've been deep into the Google ecosystem since I got diederich@gmail.com in 2005. (I actually paid 50 cents on ebay to get a very early invite.) There was no question in my mind that Google's AI work would deeply integrate into their whole ecosystem in very powerful and productive ways. (Yes, I can join you to discuss, at length, the various ways that Google's dominance is problematic/scary.)

Having said all that, I'm quite happy that there is, at the moment, a very rich competitive landscape. Indeed, not too long ago, with Gemini Pro 3.1 languishing, I moved most of my deeper thinking work to ChatGPT, which was, for me at least, clearly outperforming Gemini.

While I certainly didn't anticipate it, Google's strategy of making their fast/relatively inexpensive models surprisingly powerful has been a welcomed surprise.

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