There’s a big misconception about how GLM 5.2 was trained. Yes, they distilled Claude and GPT 5.5 — but distillation is not how they matched Opus quality. Distillation only fixed the cold start problem in RL.
RLing an agentic coding model isn’t rocket science. In simplified terms:
1. RL needs trajectories — rollouts where the model actually completed a task in some env
2. No successful trajectory on a task = zero gradient = you can’t RL it. This is the cold start problem
3. Distillation solves it. You seed your model with knowledge from a smarter one (Claude, GPT) on tasks it can’t do yet
4. Now it produces positive trajectories on those tasks
5. RL on those trajectories and hill climb agentic coding
6. At that point you no longer need to distill and can solely hill climb RL to better models
This is an interesting curve. I’d argue it’s harder to get to Opus 4.8 from scratch than to go from Opus 4.8 → Fable/Mythos tier.
GLM 5.2 is already producing positive trajectories, so they have plenty to RL on — they’ll keep climbing to Mythos quality without distilling any further. They no longer need American models.
The Economist has a fascinating habit when it comes to China. If a city is poor, it’s proof the system failed. If a city becomes prosperous, safe, clean, affordable, well-connected, and pleasant to live in, then prosperity itself becomes the problem.
According to the article, Shaoxing is comfortable, prosperous, safe, convenient, culturally rich, and offers a lower-pressure lifestyle than China’s megacities. Yet somehow the conclusion is still “comfort meets constraint”.
Imagine applying the same framework elsewhere😅
Copenhagen: “Happiness meets boredom.”
Zurich: “Wealth meets excessive punctuality.”
Amsterdam: “Freedom meets inconvenient rain.”
Tokyo: “Efficiency meets social pressure.”
At some point every successful city can be turned into a cautionary tale if the goal is to find a cloud behind every silver lining.
The article acknowledges many of the things ordinary people actually care about like safety, reliable infrastructure, good public transport, clean streets, economic opportunity and affordable living relative to income. But then, immediately pivots into “yes, but…” mode.
From a development economics perspective, a more interesting question would be how did a country that was overwhelmingly poor 40 years ago create dozens of cities where millions of people now enjoy middle-class lifestyles?
China lifted roughly 800 million people out of extreme poverty over several decades. Whether one likes China’s political system or not, that achievement deserves credit rather than being treated as an inconvenient footnote. The economic transformation itself is one of the largest in human history.
The article also illustrates a broader tendency in Western commentary: quality of life is often measured differently depending on the country.
When a European city has CCTV, zoning regulations, government planning, and strong public transit, it’s called good governance.
When a Chinese city has extensive CCTV,
zoning regulations, government planning, and strong public transit, it’s called “constraint”.
I’d say The Economist is applying a double standard, so on brand.
A good economist starts with outcomes.
Are people safer?
Is purchasing power rising?
Is infrastructure improving?
Are opportunities expanding?
Do residents voluntarily choose to stay there?
If the answers are mostly yes, then the city deserves credit.
The real paradox is that some commentators seem uncomfortable whenever comfort appears in places they expected to fail.
@TheEconomist
We are working on a cross platform UI in @moonbitlang , soon you are going to build literally everything in MoonBit: from desktop UI to server side to mobile and webpages and agents, in a single typed/verified tech stack!
We are working on a cross platform UI in @moonbitlang , soon you are going to build literally everything in MoonBit: from desktop UI to server side to mobile and webpages and agents, in a single typed/verified tech stack!