> can a sufficiently large non thinking model perform the same as a smaller thinking?
Models from Anthropic have always been excellent at this. See e.g. https://imgur.com/a/EwW9H6q (top-left Opus 4.6 is without thinking).
its interesting that opus 4.6 added a paramter to make it think extra hard.
its interesting that opus 4.6 added a paramter to make it think extra hard.