{"generated_at":"2026-11-12T18:49:28.319Z","source":{"name":"Hacker News public API","url":"https://github.com/HackerNews/API","attribution":"Stories and comments are public Hacker News submissions by their respective authors. HackerHub is an independent reader, not affiliated with Y Combinator.","content_is_untrusted":true},"story_id":50471431,"hn_url":"https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50471431","total_comments":102,"returned":18,"scope":"Up to the requested number of top-level comments in Hacker News ranked order. Deleted comments are omitted. Nested replies are not fetched; this is not the complete thread.","comments":[{"id":50472105,"author":"wds","created_at":"2026-11-12T18:43:06.000Z","text":"This was rolled out RIGHT away, as when I just went to use Gemini, seeing 3.8 Flash be replaced with \"4 Hydrogen\" was less hype and more a thought along the line of \"What [on Earth] is Gemini Hydrogen???\", then me going here to figure it out.\nThis model naming scheme works for separate products, but using elements, molecules, etc. for products you're supposed to compare with each other... Not very helpful.\nIf anything, my intuition would say that Hydrogen is more powerful than Argon... I don't know. Not liking this naming scheme trend.","parent_id":50471431,"replies_count":0,"hn_url":"https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50472105"},{"id":50471754,"author":"ComputerGuru","created_at":"2026-11-12T18:21:56.000Z","text":"As this is a) being served in Search, b) supposed to be 2.5x faster than 3.8 Flash, c) the element with lowest atomic weight; I deduce that, despite being more capable than 3.8 Flash, now the “entry level” model set to replace 3.5 Flash Lite.\nBut it is priced the same as the non-discounted 3.8 Flash, considerably higher than what anyone is paying today for 3.8 Flash or 3.5 Flash Lite or the deprecated 3.0/2.x Gemini models. How does this work? Is Google abandoning the “fast and cheap” tier? That seems like a mistake since plenty of workflows are absolutely price inelastic, meaning when the 3.8 Flash discount ends at EOY, lots of current enterprise Gemini customers would have to take their business to another shop??","parent_id":50471431,"replies_count":4,"hn_url":"https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50471754"},{"id":50471576,"author":"vatsachak","created_at":"2026-11-12T18:11:52.000Z","text":"This is the most important class of models to keep watch. These are the ones that are going be to workhorses in the post-tokenmaxxing clarity","parent_id":50471431,"replies_count":2,"hn_url":"https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50471576"},{"id":50472082,"author":"vander_elst","created_at":"2026-11-12T18:41:54.000Z","text":"Can anyone understand the logic behind the names? Argon, hydrogen, carbon, what is the mental model one should use to understand where they fit, or what comes before/after?\nHaiku, sonnet, opus.. is ok\nterra, Luna, Sol... is also ok..\nbut this?","parent_id":50471431,"replies_count":1,"hn_url":"https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50472082"},{"id":50471613,"author":"JacobAsmuth","created_at":"2026-11-12T18:13:48.000Z","text":"I think a new default free model for AI Mode being so close to the frontier will be a massive jump in perceived AI intelligence by the general public.","parent_id":50471431,"replies_count":1,"hn_url":"https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50471613"},{"id":50471948,"author":"aizk","created_at":"2026-11-12T18:33:16.000Z","text":"It's starting to feel like OpenAI is in 3rd place now. Really eager to see how / if they can claw their way back up.","parent_id":50471431,"replies_count":3,"hn_url":"https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50471948"},{"id":50471826,"author":"JV00","created_at":"2026-11-12T18:25:40.000Z","text":"Personally I found my usage of llms bimodal, I only have uses for the top frontier models (for research and development) or for the cheapest and fastest ones (to use in production for consolidated, simple flows). I am curious what people find the mid tier models useful for.","parent_id":50471431,"replies_count":2,"hn_url":"https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50471826"},{"id":50471817,"author":"whinvik","created_at":"2026-11-12T18:25:20.000Z","text":"The pricing on these models make really little sense. This is $1.5. Argon is $2. Carbon is also $2 for now.\nFeel like this pricing only makes sense for a product where you don't even select the model. Maybe Antigravity is like that.","parent_id":50471431,"replies_count":2,"hn_url":"https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50471817"},{"id":50471675,"author":"WarmWash","created_at":"2026-11-12T18:17:42.000Z","text":"I really hope hydrogen keeps the excellent conversational ability of 3.8 flash. For brainstorming or even decoding the dense output of the powerhouse models, flash was a real delight to use. Its the first non-SOTA model that I would actually go to often over the larger models, it was fast, plenty smart enough, and generally wrote really well. Here's to hoping hydrogen keeps that up","parent_id":50471431,"replies_count":0,"hn_url":"https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50471675"},{"id":50471936,"author":"jeremyjjj","created_at":"2026-11-12T18:32:20.000Z","text":"Good they are able to replace Flash. And cool this is available to everyone via search. But I still don’t understand Googles strategy with these new models.\nFor pro sub, Argon is still very limited and Carbon is only available on Ultra. This is not competitive at all. To say nothing of also being locked into Antigravity.","parent_id":50471431,"replies_count":1,"hn_url":"https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50471936"},{"id":50472033,"author":"krmmalik","created_at":"2026-11-12T18:38:29.000Z","text":"I'm really enjoying all these Gemini releases. I know a lot of people keep saying Google is too far behind in the race and that they dropped the ball to early but I don't feel that way at all. I had both Opus and Fable try to find a discreet bug in my codebase and both models assured me I had nothing to worry about and was probably overthinking. Argon was the only model that got to the bottom of the matter and developed the fix for me. I constantly find the Gemini models perform better in the real world as compared to the other frontier models and I also find they have less of the AI-isms that many of us have now come to associate with ChatGPT and Claude. Gemini feels like you're speaking to a comrade. Claude feels like you're speaking to a friend and it's an important distinction I feel.","parent_id":50471431,"replies_count":1,"hn_url":"https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50472033"},{"id":50471706,"author":"behat","created_at":"2026-11-12T18:19:44.000Z","text":"The orchestrator in Antigravity might be the most important part of this release. I'm excited that this is being built natively into harnesses.","parent_id":50471431,"replies_count":0,"hn_url":"https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50471706"},{"id":50471665,"author":"modeless","created_at":"2026-11-12T18:16:56.000Z","text":"This is a good blog post because of the graphs comparing directly to Terra and Sonnet for both wall-clock time and cost per task. This is the exact information I'm looking for.\nMy TL;DR is: seems like a better choice than Sonnet in areas outside of coding, and at high reasoning it's smarter than Terra but somewhat more expensive.","parent_id":50471431,"replies_count":0,"hn_url":"https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50471665"},{"id":50471630,"author":"jawns","created_at":"2026-11-12T18:14:49.000Z","text":"The naming of these Gemini 4 models is ridiculous.\nIn order of sophistication and cost, the models are Hydrogen -> Argon -> Carbon.\nWhat kind of ordering is that?!?\nWith the introduction of Hydrogen, it's no longer ordered alphabetically. That would be Argon → Carbon → Hydrogen.\nAnd it never was ordered by atomic mass, which is arguably the best ordering if you're going to name your model classes after chemical elements. That would be Hydrogen → Carbon → Argon.\nIt's also not ordered by prevalence in the universe. That ordering would also be Hydrogen → Carbon → Argon.\nIt's not ordered by electronegativity, boiling point, melting point, or any other remotely defensible chemical property I can think of.\nIt's not even ordered by letter count, Scrabble score, or NFPA 704 Flammability Rating, all of which would be Argon → Carbon → Hydrogen.","parent_id":50471431,"replies_count":11,"hn_url":"https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50471630"},{"id":50472122,"author":"lbarrow","created_at":"2026-11-12T18:44:34.000Z","text":"The naming of this stuff is so bad. Hydrogen (1) is dumber than Carbon (6), sure. But Carbon (6) is smarter than Argon (18)!\nThe labs use a pretty clear progression: Luna -> Terra -> Sol -> Astra; Haiku -> Sonnet -> Opus -> Fable/Mythos. Google doesn't make it easy.","parent_id":50471431,"replies_count":0,"hn_url":"https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50472122"},{"id":50471589,"author":"james2doyle","created_at":"2026-11-12T18:12:26.000Z","text":"Their naming scheme seems a bit tough to follow. But it does seem like they finally learned their lesson and announced something at the same time it's actually available!","parent_id":50471431,"replies_count":0,"hn_url":"https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50471589"},{"id":50471577,"author":"tintor","created_at":"2026-11-12T18:12:01.000Z","text":"When are getting more powerful Gemini 4 Lead, and Gemini 4 Uranium models?","parent_id":50471431,"replies_count":1,"hn_url":"https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50471577"},{"id":50471735,"author":"thisisauserid","created_at":"2026-11-12T18:20:53.000Z","text":"Looks like they are releasing these... periodically!","parent_id":50471431,"replies_count":0,"hn_url":"https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50471735"}]}