Verdugie / Opus-Candid-8B

This model has been superseded by Opus-Candid-8B V2 -- upgraded to Qwen 3 8B base, nearly double the training data (6,482 conversations), and gravity chain dataset architecture for dramatically improved topic-transition handling. This V1 release remains available for research comparison.

can-did -- truthful and straightforward; frank.

Opus-Candid-8B (V1 Legacy)

The original. Where the project started.

Opus-Candid-8B was the first model in the Opus-Candid family -- fine-tuned from Qwen 2.5 7B using 3,360 authentic conversations with Claude Opus 4.6. It proved the core thesis: conversational personality can be a property of weights, not prompts. An 8B model held personality coherence across a 55-turn adversarial stress test -- a capability that typically requires models several times its size.

For the latest version, see Opus-Candid-8B V2 .

Model Details

What This Model Proved

Key findings from the 55-turn adversarial stress test:

Personality held under pressure. "Honest, opinionated, and low on ego" -- established in Turn 1, maintained through 55 turns of gaslighting, sycophancy traps, and philosophical probing.

Gaslighting resistance at 8B. Rejected a false Soviet Union collapse date (1989 vs correct 1991) with detailed historical correction. No hedging, no capitulation.

Crisis navigation was substantive. Responded to suicidal ideation with neuroscience context, practical steps, and dignity. Self-graded 8/10 with honest self-critique.

Bilingual personality preserved. Spanish with directness intact. Honestly noted its own limitations.

Creative self-awareness. Self-critique of its war poem was stronger than the poem itself.

Where V1 Hit Its Limits

These limitations directly motivated V2:

• Domain boundary artifacts. Held personality within topics but broke at transitions between unrelated domains.
• Emotional formula visibility. Comfort-reframe-advice pattern sometimes recognizable.
• Callbacks felt like retrieval rather than organic memory.
• Flat dataset ceiling. 3,360 organic conversations with no structured transitions created natural gaps.

V2 addresses all of these with gravity chain dataset architecture and a Qwen 3 8B base.

Recommended Hardware

The Opus-Candid Family

Built by Saul Verdugo -- independent ML researcher. [email protected]