Distillation debate: long-horizon tasks rarely benefit from copying frontier model outputs
JoshPurtell · x · 2026-09-03
In an X debate over whether a model was distilled, Josh Purtell argues that for long-horizon tasks like building a GameBoy emulator—assuming only a closed frontier model can complete them—reliably synthesizing rollout training data essentially requires running the frontier model end to end, with extensive hint engineering. He adds that single-shot simple tasks like those Shopify does don't benefit much from copying frontier outputs, unlike most long-horizon coding tasks.
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