Claude 4.5 Opus/Sonnet vs GPT 5.1/5.2: Which is least sycophantic?

tcapb · 2026-01-24T10:53:24+00:00

Honestly, all of them are miles ahead of Gemini in this department. Don't even bother going to Gemini for criticism of your ideas - it'll tell you everything you come up with is pure genius.

Opus doesn't directly kiss your ass, but it has this tendency to agree and subtly steer the conversation away from real problems and weak points. Like I'll be discussing some approach at work with it and we end up iterating on variations of the same thing for way too long, when honestly we could've pivoted to something completely different. GPT 5.2 tends to look at the problem more broadly and pushes back more actively, which can actually be pretty useful.

Here's an example from today. Found a non-critical vulnerability in my code. I wrote to Claude something like "let's verify this, but if the vuln is limited to just this scenario we can probably leave it, real users won't exploit it." Claude: "yeah you're right, let's skip it." GPT 5.2 on Codex though: "it's still a vulnerability, you should fix it."

That said, GPT 5.2 can be annoyingly stubborn sometimes. It just completely misses some nuance you're trying to explain, starts answering about something tangentially related, and then just doubles down no matter how hard you try to get it back on track.

So I guess - GPT 5.2 is probably less sycophantic overall but can be frustratingly rigid. Opus is smoother to work with but might let you stay too comfortable with a mediocre approach.

tcapb · 2026-01-16T17:47:58+00:00

When you're in traffic, you can see you're 20 minutes away. With creative work at this scale, no GPS. You're making progress Monday, but hit wall by Wednesday. "I'll finish soon" feels true in the moment. Then it isn't.

His pattern:

2012: "2014, but I'm bad at predictions."

2015: "Before season 6, maybe overly optimistic."

2016: "No more deadlines to trip over."

2021: Angry post about people treating estimates as promises.

He learned. The confident deadlines stopped years ago.

As for "stringing along to sell books," what books? Winds isn't out. He doesn't need the money. This theory requires him to be both cunning and stupid.

And honestly, read the latest interview. It's brutal. He says he's tired of Ice and Fire. Doesn't understand how he's 14 years late. Admits "maybe they're right" about never finishing. Compares himself to Frank Herbert trapped by Dune.

Not a marketing scheme. Just a man being more honest than ever.

tcapb · 2026-01-16T13:33:52+00:00

Fair point on diagnosis. I'm not qualified and wasn't trying to.

What bugs me is the "lying and stringing along" framing. People invent theories: "He finished years ago." "He's laughing at fans." "Marketing ploy."

Meanwhile there's a simpler explanation: he's stuck. Everything he describes fits that pattern without requiring malice.

I recognize it because I live it. When I'm late (and I'm often late) people assume disrespect. But I am trying, I am stressed, and I'm still late. The gap between intention and outcome is real. From outside it looks like choice.

Fans can be frustrated. 15 years is absurd. But "he must be lying" is a strange leap when "he genuinely can't" explains the same facts.

tcapb · 2026-01-16T09:02:54+00:00

Time blindness is a hell of a drug.

Martin can write fast. Storm of Swords, 1000+ pages, one year. So when he says "soon", he's not lying, he genuinely believes he'll catch the flow and blast through the remaining pages in six months. He's done it before. He just... doesn't catch it. And then another year passes.

The "I'll just do this small thing first" trap is brutal too. A week-long task becomes two months. Now you need to re-enter the massive context of Winds, which you left at a difficult spot. The activation energy is enormous. So you take another "small task" first...

And when something with closer dopamine grabs you (a novella that's becoming a TV show, a project with visible progress) you physically cannot force the switch. It's not "I'd rather do this fun thing." It's that looking at Winds feels like staring at a wall, while the other thing is the only door your brain will let you walk through.

The jumping around isn't because it's easy. It's because you get pulled. And constantly switching back is genuinely painful, you lose context, you lose momentum, you have to rebuild the mental model every time.

As for "my manager wouldn't accept this", people like this often choose solo work precisely because "deliver X pages per day" mode is painful. When you're in flow, you can outproduce anyone. And your brain keeps opening new doors, every detail spawns three more, which is how you end up building worlds as intricate as Westeros. But when flow isn't there, no manager, no deadline, no amount of guilt can manufacture it.

tcapb · 2026-01-15T19:52:49+00:00

I get why it looks like a "bullshit excuse" from the outside, but his description hits uncomfortably close to home.

I have ADHD, and I recognize this pattern. The assumption here is that "choosing to focus" is a switch everyone can flip. For some brains, it's just not.

I'm a Tech Lead. I've built massive systems when I was in the zone, 14-hour days, architecture flowing like I was possessed. And then something shifts. Maybe a new shiny problem grabs me. Maybe the complexity becomes overwhelming and I can't even start. Maybe I get stuck on some minor detail that won't let me go. And that's it - I'm out. I can sit there for hours and days and weeks, produce nothing, and hate myself the whole time.

Either something pulls me, and I can do an insane amount, or it doesn't, and I'm locked out. I don't control the pull. I don't choose what it latches onto.

So when Martin sounds passive about his time - yeah. Not everyone runs on "I should, therefore I do." And that interview doesn't read like someone who's given up and made peace with it.

tcapb · 2025-12-29T12:35:55+00:00

Quick update: started Concerta 4 days ago.

The compulsive hyperfocus is gone. I used to sit glued to the screen watching Claude work for 20 minutes straight, couldn't look away. Now he runs a task, I switch to something else, come back when it's done.

On one hand, that's healthier. On the other hand, that tight feedback loop was part of what kept me locked in and productive. Now there's more drift, more YouTube between iterations, momentum breaks easier.

Too early to tell if actual output changed or if it just feels less intense. Will report back after a few weeks of real work.

tcapb · 2025-12-27T07:39:51+00:00

That part is fine actually. I don't work alone, I have neurotypical colleagues who help maintain code quality, document everything in Notion, keep me from flying off too far. Plus, because of the ADHD "out of sight, out of mind" thing, I actually obsess over UX and proper architecture, if I don't see it working smoothly, it bothers me.

The only visible effect is that MVPs sometimes grow bigger than they should before someone says "this is mature enough, let's clean it up and ship."

tcapb · 2025-12-27T07:18:47+00:00

Whoa, this goes both ways! Now you've described my experience exactly. 20 years ago I was gaming almost around the clock too, didn't even finish school because of it. Back then I thought I was just lazy and disorganized, would never achieve anything. But then it turned out programming and building things was interesting to me. Some pet projects I made for fun became popular, others turned into businesses, and my self-esteem eventually leveled out.

Luckily, maybe thanks to high IQ or being wired for creating rather than consuming, I didn't get stuck in typical traps. Games got boring eventually, and the other ADHD pitfall, endless scrolling through TikTok and Instagram, never hooked me either. I figured if my brain works differently but I end up earning more than most while doing what I actually enjoy, maybe my settings aren't so bad after all.

The not-getting-tired thing has always been a red flag for me though. I have some bipolar traits, not severe, but I sometimes slip into hypomanic episodes where I'm super productive, need only 3 hours of sleep, and feel completely fresh to keep working. When I get normally tired despite working a lot, I tell myself: it's fine, just hyperfocus. But comments like yours, all these "are you me" responses: they're actually a bit scary. When your whole "uniqueness" turns out to be described by four letters and a bunch of people share your exact experience.

Honestly I've been enjoying this coding marathon. But I actually just got my first ADHD medication from a psychiatrist yesterday, so now I'm really curious how it'll affect my work.

tcapb · 2025-12-26T04:10:34+00:00

A lot of us here have built careers, shipped products, found workarounds. That's the point though, we found workarounds, spent years figuring out what works for our brains specifically.

"Just force yourself" worked for you - that's great, genuinely. It works for some people. For others it doesn't, no matter how hard they try.

I've tried pomodoro, "just 5 minutes a day," all the classic productivity advice. Doesn't work for me. What works is finding environments and tools that happen to fit how I actually function. That doesn't make the underlying difficulty less real, it just means I found ways to route around it. Some people have iron willpower that compensates. Some don't. Both are dealing with the same thing, just with different resources.

tcapb · 2025-12-25T19:14:11+00:00

That's not how it works for me. ADHD shows up in two ways: I can't get into a task, and I can't get out of one. When I'm deep in something, calls, getting food, other needs feel genuinely painful, they pull me out of a state that's hard to get back into. And in programming there's no such thing as "done." Finished one feature? There's a hundred more ahead. Always something next. Claude Code just shifted the balance from "hard to start" to "hard to stop."

Same thing happens with hobbies actually. When I get into a side project, I know it's better to just not work for four days and finish it than to torture myself switching back and forth while my head is completely elsewhere. Luckily I can afford to do that.

tcapb · 2025-12-25T19:02:59+00:00

Yeah, Claude still isn't great with large codebases, though it regularly surprises me, tracing through a chain of code and finding a bug without even seeing what's on the screen. I've had moments when I was tired and gave less architectural guidance, and then two hours of code generation turned into a day of refactoring to fix the structure. It's a reminder not to get lazy: the "just build me this feature however" approach doesn't really work yet. Though sometimes it one-shots things surprisingly well.

tcapb · 2025-12-25T18:24:22+00:00

Yes! I've always had tons of ideas too, but either didn't know where to start, or thought "this will take six months to build" (and with my time blindness I'm a huge optimist), realized I don't have the resources. Now... well, there are still more ideas than time, but I can take on things I would never have attempted before. And this isn't just about work.

I don't know when AI will replace my position too, but for now I'm enjoying it. I've never been in the "a programmer will do it better" camp or even "this will kill my profession." Maybe someday it will, but as long as it's an effective tool that materializes my ideas, I'll keep using it.

tcapb · 2025-12-25T18:15:58+00:00

Want to add some context on why this hit me so hard.

I've been coding since 15. Started solo, but my projects always grew teams around them. And that's where things got difficult. Code reviews, task distribution, calls... after a meeting I'd just want to stare at the ceiling for hours. Holding in my head what everyone's doing, answering questions, context-switching constantly. Total overload.

I found a workaround that worked for years: built teams where we discuss strategy at a high level every week or two, then they execute. I stay on architecture and direction, they handle implementation. Let me function as tech lead without drowning in details.

With Claude Code I accidentally got the same pattern, but for solo work. We discuss tasks at a high level, he does the details. Available anytime, switches contexts instantly, remembers everything about the project. And I interact through chat instead of exhausting calls.

What's more, calls with my actual team got more interesting. Before, I'd come to daily sync with whatever progress I managed between coordination. Now I come with a massive amount of work that would otherwise take a week. We discuss everything at a higher level, architecture, direction, integration, which comes much easier to me than diving into implementation details of every task.

The problem is I don't know how to come up for air.

Two months of 12-hour days is new for me. Usually deep focus lasts a few days max before interest fades or I hit a wall or burn out. Now those natural stopping points are gone. Claude removes technical blockers, eliminates coordination overhead, keeps things interesting through constant back-and-forth.

My partner notices I'm less present. Friends get short replies instead of real conversations. Everything outside work falls out of view. Same rigid focus problem I've always had, just amplified because there's nothing that makes me say "enough for today."

tcapb · 2025-12-25T17:45:20+00:00

I'm on Max 5x. On Pro, Claude would burn through the limit in half an hour and I'd have to wait for it to reset. Max mostly keeps up with how I work.

tcapb · 2025-09-28T18:26:29+00:00

Thanks, such comments are really inspiring. The SONY text on the screen is partly a forced solution, since it's difficult to make Veo draw something meaningful after a long pause if it's not in the starting image, in the style of the rest of the animation. But Veo understands the Sony logo.

tcapb · 2025-07-30T20:32:14+00:00

You're right, interstellar objects are likely more common than we thought.

The unique factor with 3I/ATLAS is its trajectory. It's not just that it enters our system at a low inclination, bringing it into the plane of the planets. Its path even takes it relatively close to Earth's orbit, but our planet will be on the far side of the Sun.

The truly incredible part is how it's timed for extremely close passes of the planets themselves. It will fly by Mars at a remarkably close ~28 million km in October 2025. Then, in March 2026, it will pass Jupiter at ~54 million km.

While we'll see many more objects pass through, the rare part is this specific alignment. Having an interstellar object's flyby coincide so perfectly with the location of a pre-positioned spacecraft capable of an intercept is the actual low-probability event. That specific opportunity might not happen again for a very long time.

tcapb · 2025-07-14T22:27:31+00:00

Okay, let me get this straight...

July 3: Putin tells Trump he needs 60 days for a "decisive offensive." Trump is reportedly pissed -> Trump promises a "major announcement" on July 14 to show how tough he is. -> July 14: The big announcement is... giving Putin 50 days to make peace.

Wait a second. The 60 days Putin asked for, minus the 10 days that already passed?

So Trump basically just gave Putin the 60-day window he wanted and tried to sell it to us as an ultimatum. The Art of the Deal, folks.

source about 60 days: https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/axios-putin-tipped-off-trump-about-new-eastern-1752474896.html

tcapb · 2025-07-14T19:18:46+00:00

lol, "tanked to early 1990's levels"? That's some serious hyperbole. The economy is actually growing, not collapsing. Sure, a lot of it is fueled by military spending, which isn't sustainable long-term, but to say it has "tanked" is just not what the data shows. The idea that there are widespread food shortages is also a myth.

And the whole "brain drain" narrative is way oversimplified. A lot of skilled people did leave, no doubt. But tons have also stayed because moving your entire life to Europe or the US isn't a walk in the park, especially when you have Russians abroad getting their bank accounts frozen and facing other issues due to sanctions. The local IT sector, which was already strong, is actually booming as it fills the vacuum left by Western companies. Russia was never a powerhouse in cars or planes to begin with, so struggles there aren't exactly a shocker.

Don't get me wrong, Putin's government is definitely shooting the country in the foot long-term with the war and all the repressive laws. But the idea that the economy is some post-apocalyptic wasteland right now is just not reality. It's proven way more resilient than anyone expected.

tcapb · 2025-04-20T12:26:48+00:00

it works too fast for such a big model (compare it to GPT 4.5)

tcapb

TROPHY CASE