It wasn't one-shotted of course but I don't think there's much difference in the outcome between one-shot and like 100-shot over a week. That company is still doomed.
Think of something like Trello. Who is going to pay for that when you can easily vibe code something superior (yes you really can now).
I'm kind of surprised nobody has done that yet actually. I guess Opus 5.5 has only been out for a very short time...
It wouldn't be for free though, would it? People need to build and maintain it (and there's LLM cost associated with it too).
Let's say you are a 5 person start-up. It makes much more sense to pay $15/user/month for services like Jira, Slack, Email etc. then to build and maintain everything yourself.
For super large companies, it might make financial sense to build some of the tools in-house. But then again, that probably already made sense for LLMs were a thing. But there is more to it than just the pure financials (i.e. salary).
Maybe a 5 person company wouldn't do it. A 100 person one though? No brainer. And it only takes one to open source their solution.
Slop curators and tech support shoulders to cry on. Could be lucrative.
There are plenty of use cases for the ability to quickly through together and refine an application without reviewing the code though.
1. a puzzle game with complex interplay, pieces to place, design vs. play mode, storing multiple solutions with the puzzle, and more. I've since iterated something like 200 times as I worked out the design etc., but the first iteration was 99% correct and what I asked for
2. a learn-to-read application with built-in stories (that the LLM wrote) the ability to import epub, text, and HTML, that uses the built-in speech libraries as a default, but also supports an open-source TTS library that I gave in the first prompt, tracks progress and problem workds, has multiple games to reinforce learning, and has a parental mode for tracking progress and configuring the tool overall.
Frankly I was stunned that Claude one-shotted that second app, there was a lot in the prompt, and it did it all. I fully expected to have to iterate on the first draft multiple times. But it worked out of the box.
With earlier models that doesn't really work. You really have to read the code and watch it like a hawk or it will make a big mess.
To put it another way, with lesser models you have to guide them at a code level. With Opus 5.5 you only have to guide it at an architectural / feature level.
I am not disputing that the models are getting better for vibe coding. But I think people have very different standards of what a 'big mess' or 'maintainable software' is.
"People said it before and it wasn't true then" isn't really an argument about it being true now. There are plenty of things that happened where the zealots jumped the gun with the hype. Bitcoin for example. "People said bitcoin was going to succeed in 2005, 2006, 2007...". Or even the web. It was mega hyped in the dot com boom and then crashed and of course loaaads of stupid people thought that was the end of it.
the moment there is a model which can code whole app, we can fairly say software engineering is done.
It's key to name the boundary conditions. Unlimited cost is a very HN assumption.
You are right that there's plenty of use cases where Opus 5.5 is better.
Not everyone wants Anthropic to succeed.
I am of the opinion that they both either succeed or they both fail. They are both losing money hand over fist and their model quality is pretty close to each other. There is not a whole lot that sets them apart.
That is explicitly the Chinese strategy.
Now, what if the largest capitalist economy went all-in on an AI that might no longer be sufficiently monetizable?
Oh come on, this post sounds like one of those twitter bots. No one seriously expected them to just give away billions in R&D for free, and they arent. The chinese model companies are actively moving away from the open source setup. Even state export controls.
> First, we should adhere to the principle of openness and win-win and boost innovation-driven development. As a new engine of world economic growth and an accelerator for the shift of growth drivers, AI is moving from the digital world into the physical world. We should seize this rare, historic opportunity to encourage open source, openness, collaboration and sharing. We should facilitate technological innovation, industrial development and scenario-based application of AI. We should make coordinated advances in the transformation and upgrade of traditional industries, the cultivation and growth of emerging industries and forward-looking planning for future industries, so that all sectors and businesses can benefit from AI
-- Keynote speech by Chinese President Xi Jinping at opening ceremony of 2026 World AI Conference
http://english.scio.gov.cn/topnews/2026-07/18/content_118605...
As a socialist myself, the above comment looks like a prime example of what Mark Fisher would call capitalist realism, the ideological belief that there is no alternative. The fact that somebody would think past quarterly earnings appears unthinkable to the committed ideologue.
They wouldn't give away R&D for free, they would give it away to destroy the capitalist mode of production, as outlined above. If that isn't a worthy goal from China's perspective, then I don't know what would be.
China isn't the US. They don't share the same ideology, strategy or conclusions.
As for the export controls, they explicitly exempt already-open models and set up an automated streamlined process for future ones.
Well... obviously. What the fuck is the point of export controlling an already open model.
> for future ones
Nope. >2T models (i.e todays frontier) is explicitly not allowed.
Also see: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/china-proposes-ad...
> China isn't the US. They don't share the same ideology, strategy or conclusions.
Money and power know no ideology. They do pretty much the exact same things as the US as well (from a 3rd country's POV). They expand territory, they capture industries, etc, etc, etc,.
> Keynote speech by Chinese President Xi Jinping
Do you take the same literal interpretations of other politicians' speeches? Surely you know thats politicking, the same way every G2/G7 leader says they want a collaborative world blah blah but it's naive to not know that it is cutthroat competition in reality.
> they would give it away to destroy the capitalist mode of production
Well, I won't take that dream away from you, but you're gonna be disappointed in this particular case, in our lifetime, with this particular country, atleast :)
If Anthropic and OpenAI economics are as bad as they seem to be they deserve to fail, others will take over the remaining market. It’s not a team sport
Regardless of the performance metrics... why bad time?
Deepseek is more like a pet project with huge state backing, and they don't seem to compete with Anthropic in terms of profitability.
Anthropic is most likely not. Despite bilions of state funding and contracts.