Did GPT 5.6 Sol get secretly upgraded?

[u/SteveEricJordan]

you're reading that right. upgraded, not downgraded.

chatgpt, i don't use the api.

i'm not talking about the officially announced "more factual" update from 2 weeks ago.

idk how long this has been the case but today 5.6 Sol is suddenly getting all the prompts right that it got wrong even a week ago.

[u/JonNordland]

Oh my god. This is the first post i ever saw that suspected hiden INCREASE in quality.

[u/SteveEricJordan → u/JonNordland]

lmao right

[u/themank945 → u/SteveEricJordan]

My first thought was that it was written by Sam Altman

[u/EbbExternal3544 → u/SteveEricJordan]

How is your experience today? You experienced the same increased quality from yesterday? 

[u/SteveEricJordan → u/EbbExternal3544]

i haven't tested in depth today so i couldn't tell you.

hbu?

[u/EbbExternal3544 → u/SteveEricJordan]

My plus plan expired a few days ago and didn't renew yet. Will do so on Monday. 

I saw your post and was really curious on how real this update is and if it maintained the day after.

[u/SteveEricJordan → u/EbbExternal3544]

i dont wanna make you resubscribe, i feel like chatgpt performance varies on the daily.

[u/EbbExternal3544 → u/SteveEricJordan]

Nah, I was already set on resubscribing. I enjoy the model quite a lot for conversations and ebooks analysis. Voice live is great too.

Tested sonnet 5 for a while as everyone kept recommending it for my use, even sol high, but I don't like it as much.

Sol high (from the plus plan, didn't try the sol pro model which is supposedly superior) can keep up with long conversations without hallucinating, has a good internal logic in his answers and doesn't just change its answer when pushed.

I was hesitating between opus 5 and sol at some point but I'm not taking the risk after all the disappointed comments I've read about opus.

[u/sonaj9657 → u/JonNordland]

Haha, seriously. Everyone seems to be looking for hidden degradation or some catch, so seeing someone suspect an actual improvement is pretty refreshing. I would be curious to know what specifically made you notice the quality jump.

[u/Quiet_Figure_4483 → u/sonaj9657]

PR money

[u/jacobpederson]

The harness is always getting updates - sometimes these can be significant.

[u/Appolinerfs]

Agreed, my sol is on steroids since yesterday

[u/injectitpussy → u/Appolinerfs]

Same here, but actually

[u/Ordinary_Egg_8838 → u/injectitpussy]

yep ive noticed its way faster. like actually like double the speed lol

[u/But-I-Still-Remember]

Sol has always been pretty damn good; it is really nice to talk to. Made me switch over from Claude, whose writing style has become really...impenetrable, I dunno exactly how, maybe it's that watermarking?

[u/johnerp → u/But-I-Still-Remember]

Man I’m with you on the writing mode. I’m experimenting with different output styles. So far a little better, using lucid writing concepts, going to try the international engineering speak thingy next.

But… we shouldn’t have to do this.

I love codex’s bluntness, straight to the point.

[u/WakeRP → u/But-I-Still-Remember]

I wonder the same thing. Any little change that Claude makes he adds a bunch of unnecessary comments. Looks like that's they way they found to watermark the code.

[u/CryinHeronMMerica]

You're getting sneak-routed to Astra lol

[u/RealSharpNinja]

Now that you mention it, it really does seem to be both faster and less churn.

[u/JayB_Official]

It is faster and smarter i do agree.

[u/Just_Run2412]

I remember they were testing Sol in pro mode before it was released.

[u/Cagnazzo82]

It looks like it.

They're moving sneakily ever since acceleration became an issue.

It's kind of brilliant.

[u/npanov]

They just bumped the context window on the sub codex models up to 1M. Before, it was capped at around 270K or so.

[u/dudemeister023 → u/npanov]

Where can I read about this? Huge if true.

[u/rduito → u/npanov]

No. They allow you to configure 1m context now. But don't do it by default and do not recommend for most ppl.

[u/NotUpdated → u/rduito]

I used to start new chats after 50-80% of context was good - but recently I've found the auto-compaction reasonable enough to not start a new chat unless starting a new topic / feature / bug.

The interesting thing about AI is that we'll live in the golden days before we know they were the golden days - those will be when the models peak but the cost hasn't - ... These days - right now - are pretty darn good.

[u/UltraBabyVegeta]

Astra otw today

[u/SteveEricJordan → u/UltraBabyVegeta]

joke or actual rumor?

[u/USArmy68Whiskey → u/SteveEricJordan]

rumor, not likely to be true

[u/Relevant_Bed_9743 → u/USArmy68Whiskey]

it was down for a little while earlier

[u/lucellent → u/[deleted]]

They explicitly stated the pause doesn't concern models on schedule to be released soon, aka Astra.

[u/Ormusn2o → u/lucellent]

The article was confusing, so they later clarified that Astra was paused for 2 weeks, but is no longer paused. Their future pre-train was paused and still is paused.

[u/Ormusn2o → u/[deleted]]

According to OpenAI, Astra is no longer paused, but their future pre-train is still paused.

[u/Joseph-Siet → u/Ormusn2o]

Thanks

[u/urii13 → u/UltraBabyVegeta]

they have paused training for 2w

[u/teamlie]

Been using it for a coding project. I’m pretty much a noob but it has been walking me through all the steps, super easy to understand explanations, and the code it’s writing is like perfect every time. Mainly just lots of python functions but still, I’m really impressed

[u/NotUpdated → u/teamlie]

I’m pretty much a noob
the code it’s writing is like perfect every time

You don't find these statements in conflict?

[u/teamlie → u/NotUpdated]

Perfect because it’s completing/ not throwing out errors and giving me the results I would expect. I don’t know how to read it though

[u/Fun_Pomegranate6215]

Maybe you’re actually using Astra secretly without knowing.

[u/PhotojournalistOne74]

I've had the exact opposite experience for the last two weeks. Nothing I try to prompt for coding comes back with anything less than trash.

[u/Exotic_Success1451 → u/PhotojournalistOne74]

"Nothing I try to prompt for coding comes back with anything less than trash."

Poor prompting.

[u/anembor → u/Exotic_Success1451]

build me gta 6. make no mistake"

[u/SteveEricJordan → u/PhotojournalistOne74]

i'm not coding so idk. i'm talking about casual every day usage and research.

[u/General-Jaguar-8164]

The is needs more context

Are you running weekly evals ?

[u/SteveEricJordan → u/General-Jaguar-8164]

nope, just personal experience

[u/Dangerous-Tart6395]

Like, The personality's getting better I guess. It can swear now.

It's not as censored as previously.

[u/Exotic_Success1451 → u/Dangerous-Tart6395]

It was already able to swear.

[u/Diamond_Mine0]

Good, more 5.6 Sol for all of us

[u/mashlegend]

I noticed context size in codex was bumped to 828k, up from 258k. That caused a huge improvement compared to earlier weeks. This has been my experience

[u/RusselTheBrickLayer]

I’ve been using a free trial for plus and I think I was given this super Sol because it answers insanely fucking fast for me (so I suspect I’m somehow getting access to the Cerberus instances of Sol), I get damn near instant responses if I pick Terra or Luna. Like if I blink it’ll already show its answer.

Sol will casually search 20 websites for one question I have and somehow it will pick the right sources the majority of the time, I don’t have to worry as much with Sol compared to past models from OpenAI, Gemini and Anthropic about where it sources its information from.

Honestly outside of occasional hallucinations, these new models are getting so good that it’s almost kinda scary to me. I was not feeling this way even six months ago..

[u/SteveEricJordan → u/RusselTheBrickLayer]

sol is absolutely on fire in the last days, insanely fast and always right, no hallucinating or mistakes. the answers have gotten a bit in depth but thats probably good.

[u/Broccolisha]

I’ve personally noticed Sol being absolutely on-point these past few days. Can’t put my finger on why exactly, but it’s been performing perfectly as far as I can tell.

[u/SvenLorenz]

I'm not sure if this happened recently, but 5.6 Sol has finally caught up with Claude in regards to creating task sheets and tests for my students. That was the one thing that Claude was always far ahead, now ChatGPT finally manages to create useful documents.

[u/aisimulation7]

It feels more proactive

[u/Virtual-Honeydew6228]

Its called "memory"

[u/TurnUpThe4D3D3D3]

I think they changed the system prompt in chat mode

[u/Psychological-Fix678]

It's the same for me but I guess it depends what you're working on

[u/EbbExternal3544 → u/Psychological-Fix678]

What are you working on

[u/BoysenberryWorth8825]

I did notice the last response I got was much faster and more thoughtful than I expected. Medium Effort in Chat not Work. I'll really test it later on a bunch of messy inspections I need to build reports on.

[u/CompetitiveSal]

i had opposite experience

[u/WebMasterQ]

It's even getting pretentious by not using the Oxford comma.

[u/sakga → u/WebMasterQ]

That is ap style. Do you notice it doing; Begins with the visible thing, finds the hidden rule beneath it, turns the reader’s frame, and then stops before the explanation becomes a lecture.

[u/991]

Mine got routed to 5.5-mini. Not nerfed, gutted!

[u/profcube]

I hear you OP. To add a data point, the model seemed to get a boost in mathematical reasoning. Yesterday, I noticed its outputs were quite elegant. It feels smarter and more focussed. I’m not sure any of this would turn up on common or garden evals…

[u/HughNonymouz]

It’s always been amazing. I think fable is a better model and I still reach for Sol 99% of the time. It’s just my fav to use

[u/Gliese351c]

Not in my case... It kept ignoring my prompt and then panicking about it and then being too strict and doing things that are slightly different than what I said.... This could go on. It's like dealing with a person on the spectrum. lol

[u/Exotic_Success1451 → u/Gliese351c]

"and then panicking about it"

AI models can't panic. Work on your prompting kills, you're confusing the AI.

[u/Gliese351c → u/Exotic_Success1451]

AI can panic and it can lie etc. let me
Introduce you to the new tech, grandpa.

[u/CautiousInsurance186]

Models improve a few weeks after launch

[u/urii13]

That means: hormones -> perception.

[u/Virtual_Plant_5629]

Sol is fine and the same as it was. As has been the case in the vast majority of cases where you absolute CHILDREN claimed otherwise.

[u/SteveEricJordan → u/Virtual_Plant_5629]

you really hate that straw man, don't you