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Posted by droidjj 8 hours ago

Kimi K3, and what we can still learn from the pelican benchmark(simonwillison.net)
206 points | 119 commentspage 2
rdtsc 4 hours ago|
The idea is not to use pelicans on bikes but a similarly random non-sensical prompts: crows on scooters, squirrels in a moon rover etc. Then pick another one for another for next cross-llm evaluation.
spikk 3 hours ago||
It will be valuable to have two types of benchmarks: ones that evolve alongside the models and ones that never change. You probably can't get historical stability and resistance to flooding and training on at least some parts of it from the same test
mesmertech 5 hours ago||
My personal benchmark for new models has been to compare video making skills with something like remotion. Usually reveals if they have any "taste" or outside the box thinking.

I'm starting to not trust any "benchmarks" when it comes to frontier models at least. As an example Sol feels the most "gets stuff done" but has zero taste, or any capability to surprise.

And for frontier models I go one step ahead and try to recreate a complex animation video, with the ability for the model to review its own work. And at this Fable is still the top one. Ex: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDAeAuYyl0E (recreation of Claude announcement video) and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSsVNtGPOIg (recreation of a fireship video). Sol did something similar but you can instantly tell its AI slop from very small things, and it just has no narrative or thought put into the writing.

https://mesmer.tools/benchmarks/ai-video-generation , I usually put basic ones here.

mesmertech 5 hours ago|
And on creativity at least visually, Gemini 3.1 pro is somehow still up there. But its really hindered by its inability to use tool calls effectively or make a long term plan.
nothercastle 4 hours ago||
It’s not bad kind of expensive for 25c but if the prompt is rendered cost is much better.
criddell 4 hours ago|
I wonder what the non-subsidized cost is. Add in the electricity and water too.

We may be boiling the oceans but at least we are finally getting some good SVGs of pelicans on bicycles.

whywhywhywhy 4 hours ago||
Don't see why we have to have this spammed every model release when Fable class models perform the same as Opus on basic tasks like these.
dgellow 3 hours ago|
What spam? It’s one article. You can skip it
hkalbasi 5 hours ago||
Is there a gallery of all pelicans generated by simon over time?
chrismorgan 4 hours ago||
https://simonwillison.net/tags/pelican-riding-a-bicycle/ isn’t quite a gallery, but pretty close.
inglor_cz 5 hours ago||
If Simon reads this debate, I would gladly vote for such a gallery. It would belong to "digital heritage of mankind".
dsign 6 hours ago||
Another day, another model and another pelican :-)

I can't help but wonder where is the trend going? What will we have in five years? Maybe it will all have puttered out, and we will have moved to the next thing? Or maybe the prompt then will be "make a pelican ride a bicycle", and out will come the genetic code for a giant pelican with extremities suitable for a handle bar and pedals, and an inborn affinity to ride bicycles?

ofjcihen 6 hours ago||
I’m excited for this specific brand of survival horror.
rvz 5 hours ago||
You are thinking too hard on this. This entire "benchmark" is a performative joke for attention that only works on HN.

> What will we have in five years? Maybe it will all have puttered out, and we will have moved to the next thing?

We will just have more of the same.

simonw 3 hours ago|||
> This entire "benchmark" is a performative joke for attention that only works on HN.

I take exception to that! It's a performative joke for attention that works far more widely than just Hacker News.

Yiin 5 hours ago|||
You say it's performative joke, but it all depends what you're using model for. So far the rule has been quite straightforward, better models consistently renders pelican in higher quality, I've yet to see an exception. It is also a good enough (for me at least) test for "taste" the model has.
j_maffe 5 hours ago||
> better models consistently renders pelican in higher quality The article literally avoid making this argument and gives counterexamples to this statement.
softwaredoug 3 hours ago||
Old and busted: benchmaxxing

New hotness: pelicanmaxxing

kherud 5 hours ago||
Imagine what amazing SVG generators we could have if Simon had randomized the target image from the start (and companies wouldn't just overfit on pelicans).
Gander5739 2 hours ago|
I think a pelican riding a bike is fairly random. (https://xkcd.com/221/)
Xx_crazy420_xX 6 hours ago|
I would be surprised if pelican svgs are not part of the training corpus rn
skeledrew 5 hours ago||
If that were the case then it'd do a way better job. Think experienced artist level.
teravor 4 hours ago||
how would great pelicans make their way into the training set?

what they do have are many different pelicans and people helpfully rating them in the comments.

dgellow 3 hours ago|||
That’s covered in the article
seventeengivens 5 hours ago||
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