Claude Code 'dumbing down' panic: Effort 10 is just a scale change

Anthropic's Claude Code is facing another wave of suspicion over a secret "dumbing down." Developers found that even when they selected "high effort," the model reported its effort value as 10. Since 10 used to map to "low," they suspected Anthropic had quietly downgraded "high" to the old "low."

Thariq, a member of the Claude Code team, denied it. He said Anthropic is testing different backend configurations, and the numeric mapping for effort changed along with them. This 10 isn't a case of "only 10 out of 100" — the number alone is meaningless. Users who picked high are still getting high.

It's no wonder users are up in arms. In March, Anthropic lowered Claude Code's default effort from high to medium, then reversed itself after users complained the model seemed dumber. Anthropic later admitted it was a bad tradeoff.