Qwen3.6-35B-A3B on my laptop drew me a better pelican than Claude Opus 4.7
simonwillison.net
April 16, 2026
2 min read
🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
61/100
Summary
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B generated a superior image of a pelican compared to Claude Opus 4.7. The Qwen model was run on a MacBook Pro M5 using LM Studio.
Key Takeaways
- Qwen3.6-35B-A3B produced a better illustration of a pelican riding a bicycle than Claude Opus 4.7.
- The pelican benchmark, originally intended as a joke, has shown a correlation between the quality of generated images and the overall usefulness of AI models.
- Qwen3.6-35B-A3B is currently more effective for generating specific SVG illustrations compared to Claude Opus 4.7.
- The performance of Qwen3.6-35B-A3B does not necessarily indicate it is more powerful or useful than Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.7.
Community Sentiment
Positives
- Qwen 3.6-35B-A3B demonstrated notable creativity in generating unique and imaginative outputs, suggesting potential for artistic applications in AI.
- The slight improvement in coding tasks performance indicates ongoing advancements in model capabilities, even if marginal.
Concerns
- Despite its creative outputs, Qwen 3.6-35B-A3B struggles with physical plausibility, raising concerns about its practical applications in real-world scenarios.
- The performance gap between Qwen and more established models like Opus 4.6 highlights significant limitations in Qwen's capabilities, particularly in benchmark tasks.