Anonymous "NiuLai" model sparks guessing game; critic blames Zhipu-style hype playbook
葬AI · wechat · 2026-08-25
Chinese newsletter "葬AI" mocks the anonymous "NiuLai" model that sent investors digging last week, calling it 99% likely Zhipu and arguing anonymous benchmark stunts are "a pass for second-tier models." It recaps Zhipu's GLM-5 playbook: launching as "PonyAlpha" on OpenRouter for free, letting influencers guess, then claiming credit—plus similar cases this year from Xiaomi ("HunterAlpha"), Ant ("大象"), Meituan ("OwlAlpha"), and Alibaba's video model "HappyHorse." The author sketches the standard hype loop: anonymous free launch → top-3 on OpenRouter → Twitter testers claiming wins over Claude/GPT → Chinese media amplification → official reveal. It praises DeepSeek and StepFun for staying straightforward, and Qwen3.8-27B for launching openly and pushing cheap frontier intelligence.
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