Transcript
00:00:00So Fable 5 is back. Amazing. It's a really great model, but unfortunately the Fable 5 we're getting
00:00:06now is not really the Fable 5 we had a couple of weeks ago. And not just because it has more
00:00:14safeguards, but it does. And that's maybe also a problem, but also for many other reasons. And
00:00:20we'll dive in. But yeah, Fable 5 is back. Anthropic posted that beginning tomorrow they'll
00:00:26start restoring access. So it should happen every minute now, I guess. It is tomorrow here in
00:00:31Germany. So let's go. I want to use Fable 5 again. But they then also had another post with a bit more
00:00:38details. And most importantly, with a link to their blog with way more details. And we'll dive deep into
00:00:44that because there's a lot of interesting stuff in there. Now, first things first, you probably know
00:00:50what happened to Fable 5. It's the most recent, most capable model released by Anthropic. It was banned
00:00:56by the US government. And something similar happened, of course, to GPT 5.6 SOL, which is their most capable
00:01:05version of 5.6, which was also restricted or banned for now by the US government. They basically plan on
00:01:17getting to a point where they can roll it out, hopefully globally. And that's an entirely different
00:01:23set of problems. But right now it's not available. Fable 5 is now available again. I'm pretty sure
00:01:28GPT 5.6 will also soon be available. And of course, to some degree, it's kind of a new benchmark
00:01:34already, right? If your model doesn't get banned by the US government, that means it's not good,
00:01:39right? So you want to get banned right now. But at the same time, of course, getting banned has the
00:01:44problem that you can sell it. And of course, from my little German European perspective, where we live
00:01:51in a region where we absolutely hate technology and do nothing about our future. Well, we are totally
00:01:59dependent on these US or Chinese models. And of course, being in that world where I was able to use Fable 5,
00:02:07see that it really seems to be dramatically better at certain tasks, and then losing access to it and
00:02:14learning that in the future, access may be restricted even more for non-US citizens. That is not great.
00:02:21And that, I think, can really push the Chinese models in the end, because which models will I use
00:02:31otherwise? But that would be an entire different episode. There's a lot to say about that, too.
00:02:35It's just a little side note, like kind of a bad feeling I have with all the things that happened
00:02:40related to Fable and GPT 5.6. But let's dig deeper into what exactly we're getting back and how Fable 5.6
00:02:49works. So it's coming back. But in the official post on X, there's already the first interesting
00:02:58sentence. In the near term, some routine tasks like coding and debugging will fall back to
00:03:05Opus 4.8. What? I mean, yeah, I know you can use these AI models for more than coding, but one of the main
00:03:14use cases, especially with cloud code, of course, is coding. So learning that for routine tasks like
00:03:23coding, it will fall back to Opus 4.8 in the near term, I really wonder if I will really get access to Fable 5.6.
00:03:35Because the main thing I do with these models is coding, right? So they are very good at that. I use them all the time. But if it falls back to Opus 4.8, that means I don't have access to Fable 5, right? So that is a really weird way of phrasing that. And I'm not sure what they mean and if they will differentiate between different complexities of coding. I don't know. You could say, of course, well, for
00:04:05normal coding, you'll fall back to 4.8 and that would be bad because Fable 5 was much better at that. But for cyber security stuff, for security hardening, you'll be able to use Fable 5. It will not fall back to Opus 4.8 there, right? You could say that. You could think that. But nope. Nope, nope.
00:04:26So they released an entire post. So they released an entire post. And from that post, it becomes pretty clear to me that all that cyber security, security hardening stuff
00:04:37is the part where their guardrails will probably kick in. Because Fable 5 has more restrictive guardrails or safeguards.
00:04:50So they have this nice graphic here where they show that for normal models, essentially, you have normal safeguards, which means a lot of stuff is allowed. And yeah, only a small amount of stuff is banned.
00:05:03And for Fable 5, that is more aggressive. And my understanding is that this will also include many of the security-related prompts or tasks.
00:05:16Because one of the reasons, or the main reason, why Fable 5 was banned earlier in tune, of course, was that Amazon researchers, as they write in their post now, had found a method of bypassing Fable 5's safeguards,
00:05:31prompting it so that it identified a number of software vulnerabilities. So in the past, Fable 5 had safeguards already.
00:05:39They released it with pretty restrictive safeguards already. But Amazon researchers found a way of circumventing them for, clearly, vulnerability, software security-related prompting.
00:05:50So now they're re-releasing it with even stricter safeguards. I don't see a world where you could use Fable 5 for useful security work.
00:06:02You may still be able to trick it, to bypass these safeguards. But for normal work, where you don't jump through hoops,
00:06:09I don't know. So combined with that post, I really don't know what exactly I'll be able to use Fable 5 for.
00:06:18Also interesting, in that post about redeploying Fable 5, they have this sentence where they write that for global users, that's nice, related to my earlier point,
00:06:31on the cloud platform, cloud AI, cloud code, cloud co-work. You will get access to Fable 5, theoretically, depending on what you're doing, I guess.
00:06:40For pro max team and select enterprise plans. Fable 5 will be included for up to 50% of weekly usage limits through July 7, after which it will be available via usage credits.
00:06:55This is also huge. This is easy to overlook, but this is huge. And I know when Fable 5 was released earlier in June, it also was not unlimited usage and there was a deadline where it would not be included in your cloud subscription usage anymore.
00:07:13But it's super important to really reflect on this. Right now, until July 7, you can use it for up to 50% of your available usage if you have a cloud subscription.
00:07:24Thereafter, it's not part of your subscription at all. You pay for it with usage credits, which, in case you don't know, are extra credits you can pay if you have a subscription usage credits allow individuals subscribed to paid cloud plans to continue using cloud seamlessly after reaching their included usage limits.
00:07:43You can buy extra credits. So you pay on top of your subscription and you are then billed at standard API rates.
00:07:50And in case you wonder, standard API rates for Fable 5 are pretty, pretty steep, way more expensive than Opus 4.8, which already was not cheap.
00:08:03And therefore, with those restrictions, with it potentially falling back to a weaker model for the main work I do with those AI models, which is coding,
00:08:17and for me personally, with the additional little twist that I don't know if the US government will at some point decide that they don't want global users to access this model or potential future models,
00:08:32my excitement for it returning has kind of taken a hit, to put it like this.
00:08:37Because, you know, I have created many videos about AI. Obviously, I've shared my feelings about AI, and they are still the same regarding that I enjoyed coding more without AI.
00:08:49But the truth is, of course, and I shared that in many videos too, AI is here. And of course, I work with AI. And of course, it's useful.
00:08:57And of course, you can get more done. You can also produce more slop. That's a different question. But of course, it's useful. And of course, it will be an integral part of being a developer.
00:09:07It is already, and it will be in the future, of course, too. And if you then don't have access to those top models, or if they have such restrictive safeguards, that they're barely usable, or not really close to being as useful as they could be,
00:09:26or if they are so freaking expensive, that you also can't really use them unless you're a large enterprise, then these AI models, of course, have the potential or the danger of building or increasing a gap between the people who have access and who don't.
00:09:47Not just for coding, of course, but for all kinds of tasks, access to these models already is and will be even more a competitive advantage.
00:09:58And therefore, this rollout of Fable 5 is good to have. I'm happy to see that it's back.
00:10:06But I'm also a bit worried of how things will look like in the future.
00:10:10And I'm not sure if Fable 5 will be super useful.
00:10:13It will be interesting to see when and if and who gets access to the new GPD 5.6 model.
00:10:20And of course, as I mentioned earlier, for me, it will also be interesting to see how these Chinese models evolve and how quickly they catch up.
00:10:30Because them being open weight, of course, is kind of a guarantee that I can access them one way or the other in the future, which I don't have for these US models.
00:10:42Yeah, but anyways, that's just my two cents. Fable 5 is coming back.
00:10:46That's generally good news. And we'll have to see how useful it then is.
00:10:51news.