The Bust Thesis Meets the Paris Itinerary

What people were saying

Today split neatly into two conversations that never quite met. In one, people argued about whether Instinct survives contact with Meta. In the other, people described, in some detail, the errands it ran for them.

The skeptical side was led by @ivanburazin, whose "this is going to be a bust" post drew 545 likes and a lot of Clubhouse comparisons. @quxiaoyin argued Muse is simply faster, cleans an inbox in five minutes, and will stay free forever because Meta monetizes elsewhere, then predicted a friendly exit to Apple or Google. @HadickM ran the same tasks on both and found Instinct noticeably, sometimes significantly, slower, which he read as compute constraint rather than model quality. @os7borne made the same point in macro form: parent companies have compute, startups have to buy it.

The praise

The people actually using it were unbothered. @jbahrdestefano used it as a pocket concierge in Paris: cross-referencing friend recs against ratings, building itineraries with travel buffers, and mapping daily running loops off his coach's workouts. @DavidPawlan had it find venues, negotiate and book an NYC dinner, then chase RSVPs (50+ replies for 15 seats). @divvsaxena had his agent negotiate a catch-up with a friend's agent and just receive the answer. @soleio described it as his "fixer," which is either a compliment or a compliance issue. @stevehind used it to argue against the idea that product no longer matters, and @shriyanevatia invoked the famous Hacker News Dropbox comment at anyone still saying it's just OpenClaw.

The pushback

The most interesting criticism was from users, not bears. @alexkaplan0 called it slow, kind of dumb, and sloppy, then noted he sent 693 messages yesterday. @DealsDhamaka has used it for 15 days, likes it, and still can't find the hype; his real objection is that nobody has explained what happens to all that personal data. @paigeinsf logged stability glitches and Slack auth problems while also concluding EA jobs are in trouble.

Notable anecdotes

@manosaie has been banned by his wife from letting his agent text her agent, on the grounds that her coordination queue got too long. @blueemi99 got an unprompted life-improvement suggestion and called it a glimpse of AGI. @shapegrifter uses it to shame himself, successfully.