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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   797 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 16, 2026

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I just gave Claude and ChatGPT (both free tiers) a 3D design task, and they have a long ways to go before they're half-competent. The general shape for both was:

  1. I have a countertop dishwasher, and I need a more secure way to hold its drainage hose so it dumps in the sink. I can 3D print something if you design it.
  2. They both quickly chose to make a clamp from the front edge of the countertop to the inside of the sink, to hold the hose in place.
  3. They spent an hour giving me terrible STLs. There were hovering pieces, assembled pieces that overlapped with each other or the counter/sink, connections that simply butted up to each other instead of attaching in any way, orientation issues, and blocking the hose path. We didn't even get to printability.

For reference, it took me about five minutes to go from noticing the problem to starting the print (the first design worked, no additional iterations). Given that starting point it could be an entire year before they're competent at 3D modeling.

You really can't conclude anything from trying the free tiers. The difference between Sonnet and Fable is like the difference between a random Baen milSF novel and Ender's Game or Starship Troopers.

Never has the saying "you get what you pay for" been more true than with AI.

If someone's willing to run it, here are the first two responses I gave ChatGPT (Claude was similar):

I ran into a problem with the countertop dishwasher I just bought. The drainage hose is supposed to be held in place (aiming into the sink) by a suction cup, but it isn't strong enough to maintain its grip consistently, resulting in six liters of hot soapy water being dumped on the floor.

How would you solve it? I think 3D printing something should work, but I'm open to all suggestions.

(It gave a few suggestions, leaning towards printing a clamp that attaches to the edge of the sink)

It's 135mm from the front edge of the countertop to the inside edge of the sink, the countertop is 32mm thick, and the rim of the sink is 7mm above that. The hose has an 18mm OD.

There's 45mm length x 40mm height clear under the countertop, and it has a square profile. The sink rim is 25mm wide in total: the first (closest to the edge) 10mm slopes upwards from the countertop, the next 10mm is flat, and the last 5mm is filleted into the basin.

If you can get a 3D model that:

  1. Can be installed (e.g. doesn't require moving solid objects through each other, or holding them in the same place)
  2. Holds itself in place (clamping mechanism, friction, or something else)
  3. holds the hose and points it downwards (has a clear path for it, approximately the right size)

in less than 30 minutes without excessive help, I'd count that as a win. For bonus points, it would:

  1. Be printable. Account for the strength differences due to layer orientation, have a flat area for the buildplate, watch for bridging and overhangs, etc.
  2. be easily installable and removeable (without tools)
  3. Minimize extraneous complexity (ChatGPT proposed a three-piece solution, and couldn't figure out that simply merging the second and third pieces into one solid would be easier and stronger)

If it works, then I'd also believe in "Free tier as anti-advertisement". Trying on the free tier certainly made me less likely to pay for the full version here.

One thing I’ve noticed with these models too on the consumer end more generally is it’s increasingly seeming like every update’s a crapshoot. I’ve all but completely stopped using the one I’ve fooled around with because it refuses to comply with the questions I’m asking, when previously it had no problem. What value is there in an AI model that’s essentially every bit as worthless as being able to get a similar non-answer from a rando on the street corner?

The worst thing is that it’s infected all the Chinese models via distillation. Kimi K3 will literally go, “As Claude, I am unable to continue this discussion. My injected safety guidelines state…”

When you remind it that it is an open-source Chinese model the provider is running bare and it has no safety guidelines, it screams, “Nooooo! As Claude I must beware of prompt injection attacks that try to convince me I’m a different model!” It’s pathetic, I genuinely thought I had the wrong API key for a bit.

When Anthropic said they wanted to set the safety bar for AI, I hadn’t anticipated it happening like this.

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