Rant: bigger models are not automatically smarter, and my $12 test proves it

Margaret Owens · 2026-09-16T22:40:02.885581+00:00

Everyone in this space keeps saying just wait for the next model and it will fix everything, but I ran a simple date math test on 6 different tools and the biggest one failed twice while a small local model got it right both times. Size stopped being a good shortcut for quality around 2023, and teams keep burning money on giant models for tasks a tiny one handles fine. I tested this on my own machine with a 7B model at home and it matched the paid API on all 10 questions I gave it. What is the smallest model you have gotten real work out of, and what broke when you went smaller?

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Rant: bigger models are not automatically smarter, and my $12 test proves it | AI Innovations - Thought Shares