Not sure how much it matters for the average user though.

For myself and most others that actively use LLMs, I’m aware of the model names and differences, and on the off chance I don’t, I can do a quick search to find out.

On the other hand, my dad (“average user”) probably doesn’t care whether to use Argon or Pro, or Flash for that matter. They are all good enough for his use case anyway.

I suppose the “Auto” option is what AI companies expect the average user to use.

Not sure I agree with this argument, it's basically saying that it doesn't matter if stuff is badly labelled as people don't care what they're using anyway. fanta can be labelled as coke and coke can be labelled as fanta because the person consuming it doesn't care if they're consuming fanta or coke.

I think in many cases people may not be very AI pilled / be looking at artificial analysis etc and might think "I'm doing this much harder task, let me use the best model" and they may infer from naming that 3.1 Pro is better than the recent flash models which would be incorrect.

Anthropic had an issue with delaying the release of a new Haiku for ages but it didn't really mess with things as it was always the weakest model and so positionally it stayed the same. If however they stopped releasing new Opus models and somehow Haiku started overtaking Opus I think it'd confuse the normie consumer.

It's not too odd to me to think that the brain could have the ability to influence how much muscle mass the body wants to create. Obviously being able to think your way to being a full on bodybuilder is a bit far but...

I've for example been lying in bed before with cold toes and by focusing on heating them up in my mind I swear my blood circulation improves much faster than if I don't.

Just anecdotal of course, but considering the role the brain plays in the body I don't see it too far fetched that it can to some extent influence either of the above.