alt Hacker NewsI can add to the above that an accurate model router is what enables specialist models, and specialist models is what will in turn make model routing common place.
When we have a standard model routing protocol in place used by both applications and providers, we can start to really reap immense benefits from accurate routing and fine-tuned specialist models resulting in better performance and lower cost.
I think it really depends on what you're defining 'model routing' to include.
If you intend model routing to be 'route tasks to the best model for X task as optimized for some dimension Y', then of course ensuring availability of a model specialization on dimension Y is going to be a 'first principle' -- And perhaps this is the 'standard' definition folks would use for this.
However, my general definition of routing is inclusive of all routing that takes place in my execution pipeline, inclusive of agent/sub-agent schemes. Having frontierModelA leverage frontierModelB as a subagent gives me alloyed characteristics, and is an execution pattern that I'd route a general task.
In the above sense, you can consider this to be a difference between 'model routing' and 'model system routing', where the latter treats a multi-model execution workflow as a predefined model configuration one would route to in lieu of a single model (specialist or otherwise)
To maybe meet in the middle on this there is model optionality, and also configuration/system optionality that predefines a set of models and execution rules to follow