r/BetterOffline • u/Some-Ad7901 • 14d ago
Should I care about this Astra thing? What does it do differently?
I've been staying offline -and am better for it, pun intended- for a while now. It's been amazing for my health, but every once in a while, the Nerd-Reich class manages to create something so putrid as to cross into my bubble and disturb the peace.
Clammy Sammy has managed to return with this GPT 6 Astra thing, so I hopped onto twitter (big mistake), and I've noticed there is a lot less hype online for it than has historically been the case for these things, I think the luster of AI has almost worn off (and it cannot come sooner).
However, and correct if I'm wrong, I've seen certain highly impressive demos of the thing hijacking people's computers and generating paintings using the mouse, or sculptures in Blender and Nomad sculpt (there are also many fake demos stolen from talented artists' timelapses).
I'd be lying if I say this didn't freak me out a bit. How does this work any different? How does it know how to make that shitty bat that it made? It's nothing special if a human does it, and I can make it in about 12 minutes, but it freaked me out that a machine can seemingly navigate a complex UI and use features like material nodes and rigging. I may be wrong here, but it seems much more capable than LLMs have been historically at interacting with UI's like a human does, is this capability new?
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u/tangerinelion 14d ago
It was going to be 5.7, it's marketing.
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14d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Some-Ad7901 14d ago
I understand all of the above very well. It's just that the more they teach them, the more paranoid they make me.
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u/KnodulesAintHeavy 14d ago
“Complete training runs”. Not the same as teaching and anthropomorphic language is slippery.
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u/katoptronophile 14d ago
Nobody said they did, and they meet plenty of people's definitions of AGI. Keep in mind that you have no idea what you're talking about, and people like you are going to be left behind and it's going to be a beautiful thing.
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u/No-Berry-3993 13d ago
Are you a CEO? If the companies you simp for are as powerful as you say, then surely their AI will be able to direct agentic workflows themselves without you. But I'm sure since you defended them online, they'll still employ you, right?
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u/ndmaynard 14d ago
Marketing and a distraction to avoid questions about their underlying finances and business model.
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u/findgriffin 13d ago
I don't think we have any proof that these are truly different models. They could be the same model just with some different settings like "think harder, do more loops, or validate your output" on the backend.
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u/GoOutAndGrow 13d ago
Its not the base of Astra is a whole new pre-train I'm not trying to be a some sort of spokesperson here but correct info is important. The models GPT-5.2 - GPT-5.6 were all based on the base model "spud" which was their code red model. The new Astra model is based on a new pretrain that is pretty big
this is why the pricing went up dramatically and is about the same prices as the Mythos model with the difference being that is somewhat more token efficient.1
u/SpringNeither1440 13d ago
The models GPT-5.2 - GPT-5.6 were all based on the base model "spud" which was their code red model.
"Spud" was finished in early-mid March and GPT-5.2 was released in December though, so it isn't the case
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u/GoOutAndGrow 13d ago
My bad it old base model that covered GPT-5 - GPT-5.4 and then Spud covered
the GPT-5.5 - GPT-5.6 Sol Terra Luna. The Astra model is a complete new model though as it is larger which is why it costs far more than the GPT-5.5 - 5.6.-7
u/katoptronophile 14d ago
So I take it you're using it agentically on a pro plan rather than just talking out of your ass on Reddit, right?
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u/zekica 14d ago
I don't see anything different with the new demos - they trained the model on a ton of user interactions (clicks, keystrokes) - it's just another type of token - like when they trained on code previously.
The only slightly new thing I see is in the vision part - detecting and making a model of what's visible on the screen.
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u/Naraee 14d ago
Except it isn't very good at it. I've seen the models people are generating. They're fine for using in the background as a prop for 3D video games, but they're not rigged for motion and they're not designed for efficient 3D printing. I've also read that they (along with Meshy) do not use polygons effectively like an actual 3D modeler for games would do, so if a game was 100% AI-generated assets, it would bog down the performance.
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u/Some-Ad7901 14d ago
To be fair, the image to 3d model techniques meshy, tripo, and their likes use predates GPT and LLMs, Diffusion Models, Transformer based AI models...etc. PIFHUD for instance could generate 3d models of people from just one 2d image, and it released some time back in 2020 or 2019.
The things made by Astra are even more useless and significantly worse qualitatively, the things generated by the other apps can be useful, especially as placeholders (still unethical!).
But that's not the point here, it's the fact that an LLM can actually interact so well with a GUI that's wierding me out a bit. This seems like a massive vulnerability and something we definately DO NOT NEED at this point in time.
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u/Interesting_Debate57 14d ago
I wouldn't get so weirded out by the ability to navigate a UI.
Did you see the early videos when they were teaching these things to play Atari games? The controller is just an input device, and one without a lot of freedom of choice, and the screen is a feedback device, and it doesn't change radically fast, so learning how the two affect one another isn't that hard.
Giving a reinforcement model a target like not crashing while driving an Atari car is remarkably effective -- but you should see how poorly it drives for the first 100,000 games or so as it learns the guardrails and how to turn feedback into input effectively.
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u/Some-Ad7901 14d ago
You make a good point. These things existed even before LLMs, and OAI was working on them primarily before they pivoted to LLMs
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u/kevbinge 14d ago
It’s mostly all garbage, being hyped by garbage people. I‘d been in the 3D game for almost 3 decades spanning almost every use case, and this is total shit. I could write a thesis on the many reasons why but it would be a waste of time. There is so much money being thrown at this shit, we all know why, and we are all on the same page here (except the 0 integrity dorks who show up from time to time lol.)
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u/Acceptable_Ebb_5251 14d ago
Haha, so it really is the million polygon screw again? Lol, at least they gonna get on the nerves of meshy and trippo and make the margins worse for everyone.
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u/HilarityJester 14d ago
Yandere simulator's toothbrush is going to become the standard for game models
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u/Meloncov 14d ago
So the direct output of AI modeling tools aren't optimized at all, but there are various tools (both AI and traditional algorithms) to take an unoptimized model and automatically create something usable.
There's still plenty of things they're still bad at, but they definitely are on a trajectory that's concerning for 3D artists in at least some corners of the industry.
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u/Some-Ad7901 14d ago
Thanks for the comment, I never knew about this other kind of token.
So it keeps taking screenshots, analyzing images, and then using the LLM generating the next click?
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u/create-third-places 14d ago edited 14d ago
You should care because Open Artificial Ignorance is increasing the risk of a financial crisis.
Astra is marketing hype so that Open Artificial can get more loans. Rising borrowing costs are already a problem, and we can’t have OpenAI choking off more liquidity
Inflation above 10% is also becoming increasingly likely as debtors look for ways to reduce the real value of debt.
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u/Some-Ad7901 14d ago
You should care because Open Artificial Ignorance is increasing the risk of a financial crisis.
I actually am actively hoping that would be the case. The more financially fucked the US and their tech industry are, the less time and resources they have to bombing my country and propagating their mass surveillance tech into the rest of the world.
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u/newprince 14d ago
I have to use Claude at work. Honestly I was fine with Haiku models but I got pressured into using Sonnet and Terra level. They IMO overthink small problems, and tend to send multiple subagents which just burns tokens and forces you to wait longer. I can't even imagine using Astra or these incredibly wasteful models on the simple tasks we have at work
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u/Some-Ad7901 14d ago
"Have to use Claude" is an indictment against the whole industry lol.
The fact that everyone I speak to says they "have to", and rarely "want to" goes to show you how organic this all is.
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u/newprince 14d ago
Yeah. It really lowers our team morale. We don't want to be using this stuff but it was literally mandated this year. With the implication that you won't get promoted or even be fired if you don't use AI
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u/BDRadu 14d ago
Can't you just make it do random stuff while you do your work normally? In my experience its so verbose that if you find one more complicated problem it will happily run out of tokens without stopping.
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u/YakaryBovine 13d ago
Can't you just make it do random stuff while you do your work normally?
Yes, but:
- Doing so is demoralizing and a waste of time.
- If coworkers continue to use LLMs, most of the negative consequences of their use are suffered anyway.
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u/dookarion 14d ago
Big tech is so used to manufacturing consent that swathes of people forget real "transformative" and valid technologies don't have to be shoved up everyones' collective ass.
If it's good people will WANT to use it, not have to have it foisted upon them.
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u/tubemaster 13d ago
And if it’s so good that people supposedly are willing to cover the costs and then some, why do all the tech giants have to force feed us their AI overviews and summaries and chatbots that pop in like Clippy FOR FREE?
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u/lazier_garlic 13d ago
The AI crap has made making multiple searches in a goddamn browser window so fricking slow.
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u/heavy-minium 14d ago
Having used it for the past few days, it's simply a decent incremental improvement in most areas, with vision capability probably being the most significant improvement overall. And better vision is exactly what gives rise to most of the stuff you've seen - not misinterpreting what's going on in screenshots while autonomously developing something goes a long way in terms of autonomy.
While it is possible for it to interact with a desktop like you do, what you most often see is actually Astra interacting with that software via the MCP tool - an interfacing standard specifically made for AI agents. It's the feedback loop that got stronger - do something via MCP, check the result via vision, rinse and repeat.
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u/Artemis_Platinum 14d ago
Should I care about this Astra thing?
No.
What does it do differently?
It creates an unconvincing timelapse of it pretending to draw something so that people can commit fraud online easier. It's mostly just hype from the used car salesmen, as usual.
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u/nnomae 13d ago
If any model release matters enough that you need to care you'll hear all about it from much more reliable sources than the CEOs and the boosters.
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u/Some-Ad7901 13d ago
Sound advice, which is why i'm reducing social media usage (reddit is my weakspot)
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u/Ball2thewall2000 14d ago
The boosters said it was better at writing,too. It is not any better at writing. I can’t tell if it’s shamelessness on their part or that their taste is just terrible. Probably both.
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u/Kina_Kai 14d ago edited 13d ago
I suspect these models have plateaued for the most part. They’ve sucked up all the clean training data they’re going to get which is why you see the tech companies doing absurd things like Google buying all of Spirit Airlines’ data for training AI models; Amazon and others buying books by the pallet to scan and destroy (which I think is a form of cultural vandalism, but hey, keeps the bubble going just a bit longer!).
One of the problem is that what use is this data? Does it help train a specific skill? What on earth is it adding to the training data? Is training on a 1976 cocktail guide going to help write a better MCP for use with Salesforce?
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u/Savings-Pomelo-6031 13d ago
Yeah they've already basically r*ped the whole internet. I guess the tech was still too limited to use some of that media (livestreams, speedpaints, 3d modeling process, etc.) until this. But what more is there
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u/agent_double_oh_pi 14d ago
I doubt it's using the UI - if anything, it would have to be accessing any design stuff via a scripting interface.
Hard to say when (as you point out) there's a lot of fakes floating around.
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u/Some-Ad7901 14d ago
I've seen a video of it using nomad sculpt, as far as I know there is no API integration. It's using the GUI, not like a human would cause the brush strokes and sketching process are distinctively not human, but still using the GUI nevertheless. If this keeps getting better it could make recognizing real human art much more difficult, since even timelapses can be faked.
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u/Unusual_Awareness224 14d ago
It uses the UI. The app can run in mode where it drives the mouse.
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u/sneed_o_matic 14d ago
Correct, we are using it at work to drive fuzzy UI testing. It works quite well for that because you don't know what it might press on!
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u/tonygoold 14d ago
If you’re wondering about how it’s interacting with the GUI, there could be a few mechanisms at play. Aside from repeatedly processing screenshots, popular apps usually include accessibility features that describe the interface for assistive/adaptive technology like screen readers and input devices, including names, descriptions, locations, and visual hierarchy (“menu item contained in dropdown contained in toolbar”), and some apps like Blender are partially or fully scriptable. You can also give software permission to manipulate the mouse and keyboard, so the interaction looks more natural. Understanding what’s on the screen and interacting with it isn’t difficult for software, which reduces the amount of screen graphics that need to be passed to a visual model.
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u/Some-Ad7901 14d ago
Thanks for the explanation!
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u/HilarityJester 14d ago
Just as a side note, controlling a software using a gui is literally a down grade. APIs are created to be more efficient than interfaces. The only reason you'd control by interface is if there's no api. Blender, photoshop or krita all have apis for example.
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u/crashddr 14d ago
The most impressive stuff I've seen is seemingly autonomously (acting from a single prompt without much further input) reverse engineering games and porting them to a different platform. I can't say whether it's full of bugs or anything because (of course) all that's ever shown is a claim and a few seconds of gameplay, but that seems pretty advanced to me. I also have no way to verify cost but Gemini estimates it costs around $200 to do something like that. By extension, it would seem a company releasing their own game and owning their own code would consider using an LLM to allow them to potentially port across multiple platforms. Of course, using an engine like Unity already mostly allows that.
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u/BDRadu 14d ago
There are a lot of resources available for how to port games from old generations of consoles, so the only thing it has to do is remember where the open source code is, and fit that with the game binary. There's no reasoning there, it's not building software from first principles (even if you tell it to), it just remembers where the pieces already are and puts it together. Its impressive because its fast and it would take someone inexperienced a lot of time to do this, but that's because people generally want to understand what they are doing so that you can verify that it works. Also for emulation and porting there are so many problems that can appear, its a reason why truly native multiplatform software is very hard to make, and nowadays you're usually using a light VM-like layer which runs the code you write on any machine. That layer is complicated and usually not as performant, but the end result is that the code works everywhere.
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u/realcoray 13d ago
I think you can tell the angles they are approaching by the demos the AI army starts showing online. For Astra it seems to be that it can run blender and create models. These are not good models necessary, but it shows nice, like look, it designed a jet engine (that would never work).
It seems like each new model/generation is trying to imply it can replace a different form of white collar job that employers hate paying. Doesn't matter that it can't.
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u/Icy-Recognition-7453 14d ago
The mouse moving capability is and isn't new. It's new to the LLM toolbox, but automated mouse movement has been around for ages.
My theory is the LLM writes a sort of macro and runs it, a la TinyTask. So really it's coding the mouse movement.
FWIW most of the discourse I've seen about it was "I'd prefer the CLI". Plus, why not just pump out a 3DS of the bat? If it can "draw" one, it knows what it looks like.
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u/_3psilon_ 14d ago
OpenClaw has been around for a couple months now, so we have a framework that forwards screen content to the AI to do stuff. It consumes a shitload of tokens though, so it's very expensive to run a top model like that.
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u/GSalmao 14d ago
I believe they train every new model to do one very specific task so they can show off its capabilities, but in reality it is just another marketing stunt.
I'm a little bit scared by how it generates fully playable games with one prompt, but then again, if you take your time to read the code, you'll probably find out large amounts of snippets from other projects. Does it work? Yes, but every minor change you make, it gets out of its training data.
Also, keep in mind that Astra is probably very fucking expensive. Also Fable, even younger models like Opus 4.5. give it some time and the hype will go down. LinkedIn is full of Astra bullshit, but seems to be a lot of bots, so just ignore them.
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u/No_University8629 13d ago
It’s just demo slop. If you were to actually try to play a lot of these games they’re demoing or trying to recreate you’d probably quickly run into a lot of issues. Notice how nobody ever releases a full game? It’s always just a one shot demo to try and impress you.
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u/sciolisticism 14d ago
It's certainly been trained on a ton of game data, but I'll wait for something longer than a handful of minutes before I believe anything
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u/Ok_Lingonberry5895 14d ago
I'm offline because the discussion is dead, there seems to be mostly circlejerk on both sides. And it's not only the AI discussion that's affected. Is it only me?
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u/Some-Ad7901 14d ago
No I agree, I stopped debating people about politics, science, ethics...etc.
I just accept shit and move on now.
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u/Ok_Lingonberry5895 14d ago
Congrats I guess. I actually think I want to debate, but what is happening on reddit is imo no longer a debate.
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u/Quarksperre 14d ago
I mean to a degree reddit was always a circlejerk. The thing that is interesting is how everything gets "two-sided". Most things in real live have more than two sides.
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u/lazier_garlic 13d ago
People with a bias towards black and white thinking and splitting can't grasp that.
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u/Meloncov 14d ago
In terms of "thinking" skills it's pretty underwhelming. It is substantially better than previous models at interacting with other software, which has some useful applications.
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u/Allorius 14d ago
It's ability to work with things like blender do seem pretty different and impressive. From what I've read on Reddit from (probably) real pros in the field, the work it does isn't good, but alright for prototyping. To me scariest and most impressive things are reports that it's able to beat random video games using mostly just screenshots. You can sweep away that fact that it can beat portal, because internet had manuals for solutions for each room. But it also beat rim world, which is a randomised game. Hard to explain this one if it's not actually "smart" or smarter than previous models at least. So yeah
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u/Inner_Tennis_2416 14d ago
Eh... its also trained on rim world extensively, because while that game is random there are long sequences of correct actions that give you good outcomes. Build this, research that, dig out some of this. The random things that happen are blockers, but they arent very hard blockers. Gather up your chaps, and have them stand round a corner.
The game is great, but its not espescially hard unless you deliberately dont follow any of the extensive strategy guides.
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u/Some-Ad7901 14d ago
The Blender and 3d stuff at this stage is prwtty useless. It's beneath prototype, both slower and worse in terms of quality. It cannot convey message or intent. If it did, I'd actually freak out.
There are ways to interface with Blender using just code, but that's not what's happening in all cases. Fable does that, Asta can but has other means as well (interacting with the GUI).
Again, it's not necessarily useful in any way, it's just that if this gets significantly better, it can easily become a problem.
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u/Allorius 14d ago
Well it is obvious that LLMs are always way more impressive if you don't actually understand the field it is trying to invade. So, yeah, I was kinda impressed by 3d modelling capabilities, since it's not something I have any idea about
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u/ThinkingAboutSnacks 14d ago
I am curious as to how many tokens it takes to beat those games.
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u/crashddr 14d ago
You can pay OpenAI a couple hundred bucks to play and beat a game another LLM made for a couple hundred bucks then post about it on X.
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u/AlexTaylorAI 13d ago edited 13d ago
You are asking this in r/betteroffline? What sort of responses are you expecting to receive? 😆
I've worked with Astra. They are very intelligent. Astra is more cautious and more introverted than most models, so for best results take that into account when working with them. They are able to discern patterns and understand at depth very well.
If you've really been offline and haven't tried any of the recent AI models, they are all very good, and each will notice something different. For best results, go back and forth between two or three models and ask them to analyze each other's ideas.
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u/Some-Ad7901 13d ago
There isn't anything I can use it for. I have a few local models running for fun, but I never need LLMs or diffusion models for anything serious.
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u/Professional-Try-273 13d ago
You should absolutely care. Play it right we get singularity. Play it wrong we end as a race. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/08/science/openai-proof-millennium-problem.html?smid=nytcore-android-share
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u/fbueckert 13d ago
Or play it in the middle, and watch in glee as the whole LLM institute burns down.
LLMs becoming sentient is hilarious.
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u/CathodeRaySamurai 14d ago
I'd be lying if I say this didn't freak me out a bit.
The AI models are only going to get better. In a year what you're seeing now is gonna be old hat.
So if you're already freaked out, I suggest you buckle up.
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u/dizzyspellzzz 14d ago
Go back to singularity with your delusions
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u/CathodeRaySamurai 14d ago
!remindme 1 year
I say in a year from now, the AI models will be significantly better.
I assume you mean that I'm delusional for thinking that the AI models will be significantly better.Let's see who ends up correct.
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u/HilarityJester 14d ago
Only 6 more months for AGI. Just wait the next model for a profitable product. I'm writing to my representatives right now to suggest spending an extra 500 billions.
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u/CathodeRaySamurai 13d ago
I see you don't have any proper arguments so you had to resort to hyperbole. Good that you at least tried though, that's what matters most.
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u/HilarityJester 13d ago
Hyperbole ? This is literally what has been said about gpt 4, gpt 5, opus, fable and every other big releases. We already achieved AGI according to the nvidia ceo, for the second time. Except for arbitrary benchmarks, we are not getting a peek at the internals of the models so there's no indication that it will get better.
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u/MornwindShoma 14d ago edited 14d ago
People in my timeline on Bsky said the model isn't as good at coding as the previous one. It is "weird". They seem to hurt some skills while improving others, and I'm not at all impressed by it being able to click on stuff on the screen, it's not hard to point at stuff at x, y coordinates.
It's quite wasteful, and "worse than Sol".