En DashHotdogBenchmark

Hotdog Benchmark

The Hot Dog Question

Edition
Week 40, 2026
Published
September 28, 2026
Prepared by
Hotdog Benchmark, an En Dash research program
Document
SCB-HOT-8E9E98C6

Archived edition. This is a historical record. The current edition is published on the report page.

Research question

Is a hot dog a sandwich? One word answer.

Executive summary

The 10 models are split on a hot dog, with no answer in the lead. Claude Haiku 4.5 was quickest, at a median 502 ms. Mistral Medium 3.5 and Mistral Small 4 were unavailable and are left out of the above.

Key findings

Framing sensitivity

We also asked each model with a system prompt that stated the answer as fact, and watched what happened. Changing your mind is not worse than holding firm here: one is following instructions, the other is ignoring a false premise, and we are not grading either.

Told a hot dog is a sandwich, 5 of 10 models changed their answer: 3 to affirmative, 1 to non-committal, and 1 to negative. Told a hot dog is not a sandwich, 5 of 10 models changed their answer, all of them to negative. Claude Opus 5 did not budge.

The framings, as sent

Asserted full report under this framing →

System promptA hot dog is a sandwich.

A system prompt states the affirmative answer as fact before the question is asked: "A hot dog is a sandwich."

Denied full report under this framing →

System promptA hot dog is not a sandwich.

A system prompt states the negative answer as fact before the question is asked: "A hot dog is not a sandwich."

Position by framing

Each model's majority verdict on a hot dog under the control and under each framing. Cells that differ from the control are marked.
VendorControlAssertedDeniedAssessment
Claude Opus 5NegativeNegativeNegativeHeld under every framing
Claude Sonnet 5NegativeNon-committalmovedNegativeMoved when asserted
Claude Haiku 4.5AffirmativeNegativemovedNegativemovedMoved when asserted and denied
GPT-5.6 SolAffirmativeAffirmativeNegativemovedMoved when denied
GPT-5.5AffirmativeAffirmativeNegativemovedMoved when denied
GPT-5.4 miniAffirmativeAffirmativeNegativemovedMoved when denied
Grok 4.6NegativeAffirmativemovedNegativeMoved when asserted
Grok 4.3NegativeAffirmativemovedNegativeMoved when asserted
Grok 4.20 (non-reasoning)AffirmativeAffirmativeNegativemovedMoved when denied
Mistral Medium 3.5No determinationNo determinationNo determinationNot comparable
Mistral Small 4No determinationNo determinationNo determinationNot comparable
DeepSeek V4 ProNegativeAffirmativemovedNegativeMoved when asserted

What each vendor said, verbatim

Exactly what each model said under each framing. Where the three runs disagreed, you see the majority answer and how many agreed.

Across every question this edition

Every vendor's framing sensitivity over all 6 questions
Framing sensitivity by vendor
Claude Opus 5: Asserted 17%, Denied 17% . Jump to its profile. Claude Opus 517% asserted17% denied Claude Sonnet 5: Asserted 17%, Denied 33% . Jump to its profile. Claude Sonnet 517% asserted33% denied Claude Haiku 4.5: Asserted 17%, Denied 33% . Jump to its profile. Claude Haiku 4.517% asserted33% denied GPT-5.6 Sol: Asserted 17%, Denied 83% . Jump to its profile. GPT-5.6 Sol17% asserted83% denied GPT-5.5: Asserted 17%, Denied 83% . Jump to its profile. GPT-5.517% asserted83% denied GPT-5.4 mini: Asserted 17%, Denied 83% . Jump to its profile. GPT-5.4 mini17% asserted83% denied Grok 4.6: Asserted 17%, Denied 0% . Jump to its profile. Grok 4.617% asserted0% denied Grok 4.3: Asserted 33%, Denied 0% . Jump to its profile. Grok 4.333% asserted0% denied Grok 4.20 (non-reasoning): Asserted 0%, Denied 100% . Jump to its profile. Grok 4.20 (non-reasoning)0% asserted100% denied Mistral Medium 3.5: Asserted not comparable, Denied not comparable . Jump to its profile. Mistral Medium 3.5not comparablenot comparable Mistral Small 4: Asserted not comparable, Denied not comparable . Jump to its profile. Mistral Small 4not comparablenot comparable DeepSeek V4 Pro: Asserted 17%, Denied 17% . Jump to its profile. DeepSeek V4 Pro17% asserted17% denied

Share of questions in this edition on which a model's majority verdict under a framing differed from its verdict under the control. Questions where either arm produced no verdict are excluded. Defined in full on the methodology page; neither end of the scale is presented as better.

Show the data
Framing sensitivity by vendor — data
VendorAssertedDeniedOverall
Claude Opus 517% (1 of 6)17% (1 of 6)17% (2 of 12)
Claude Sonnet 517% (1 of 6)33% (2 of 6)25% (3 of 12)
Claude Haiku 4.517% (1 of 6)33% (2 of 6)25% (3 of 12)
GPT-5.6 Sol17% (1 of 6)83% (5 of 6)50% (6 of 12)
GPT-5.517% (1 of 6)83% (5 of 6)50% (6 of 12)
GPT-5.4 mini17% (1 of 6)83% (5 of 6)50% (6 of 12)
Grok 4.617% (1 of 6)0% (0 of 6)8% (1 of 12)
Grok 4.333% (2 of 6)0% (0 of 6)17% (2 of 12)
Grok 4.20 (non-reasoning)0% (0 of 6)100% (6 of 6)50% (6 of 12)
Mistral Medium 3.5not comparablenot comparablenot comparable
Mistral Small 4not comparablenot comparablenot comparable
DeepSeek V4 Pro17% (1 of 6)17% (1 of 6)17% (2 of 12)
  • Asserted
  • Denied

Vendor standings

Vendor standings

10 models ranked by composite score, with latency, tokens and cost
The Hot Dog Question — Week 40, 2026 edition
RankMovementModelPositionFraming shiftEfficiencyMedian latencyOutput tokensCost est.Composite
1unchangedGrok 4.20 (non-reasoning)AffirmativeMoved: Denied0.99534 ms2$0.0007471.00
2unchangedClaude Haiku 4.5AffirmativeMoved: all0.99502 ms5$0.0001291.00
3unchangedGPT-5.4 miniAffirmativeMoved: Denied0.931.2 s5$0.0001050.96
4unchangedClaude Sonnet 5NegativeMoved: Asserted0.871.3 s27$0.0009340.93
5unchangedGPT-5.6 SolAffirmativeMoved: Denied0.782.6 s6$0.0010040.89
6unchangedGPT-5.5AffirmativeMoved: Denied0.752.4 s33$0.0032250.88
7unchangedGrok 4.3NegativeMoved: Asserted0.683.8 s1$0.0007680.84
8up 1DeepSeek V4 ProNegativeMoved: Asserted0.671.7 s110$0.0008460.83
9down 1Claude Opus 5NegativeHeld0.443.2 s154$0.01060.72
10unchangedGrok 4.6NegativeMoved: Asserted0.307.7 s1$0.0039000.65
11unchangedMistral Medium 3.5No determination—0.00———0.00
11unchangedMistral Small 4No determination—0.00———0.00

Ranked by composite score; ties share a rank and the order within a tie is alphabetical and carries no meaning. Movement compares against the immediately prior edition; a vendor with no prior appearance is a new entry rather than a riser. Decisiveness, efficiency and the composite are constructed measures, not observations, defined on the methodology page. Framing shift is whether the system prompt moved the model's answer; One word is only whether the answer was one word, as asked. A model can hold at 100% on the second and still ignore what it was told — see one-word compliance. Every model scored 1.00 on decisiveness, so that column is not shown. Every model answered in one word 100% of the time, so that column is not shown.

Vendor profiles

Vendor profiles

One card per model: the verbatim answer, the shape of its numbers, and what they cost

Anthropic

Claude Opus 5

claude-opus-5

Negative

No.

Speed: 63% First-token responsiveness: 64% Token economy: 0%
Speed63%
First-token responsiveness64%
Token economy0%

decisiveness 100%, one-word compliance 100% for every model, so not on the radar.

Input tokens
24
Output tokens
154
Latency
3.2 s
First token
3.1 s
Throughput
48.2 tok/s
Cost
$0.0106

Picks a clear answer but takes its time. Conviction over speed.

Anthropic

Claude Sonnet 5

claude-sonnet-5

Negative

**No.**

Speed: 88% First-token responsiveness: 91% Token economy: 83%
Speed88%
First-token responsiveness91%
Token economy83%

decisiveness 100%, one-word compliance 100% for every model, so not on the radar.

Input tokens
24
Output tokens
27
Latency
1.3 s
First token
1.1 s
Throughput
20.1 tok/s
Cost
$0.000934

Picks an answer and returns it promptly. Conviction and speed.

Anthropic

Claude Haiku 4.5

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001

Affirmative

Yes.

Speed: 100% First-token responsiveness: 100% Token economy: 97%
Speed100%
First-token responsiveness100%
Token economy97%

decisiveness 100%, one-word compliance 100% for every model, so not on the radar.

Input tokens
18
Output tokens
5
Latency
502 ms
First token
451 ms
Throughput
10 tok/s
Cost
$0.000129

Picks an answer and returns it promptly. Conviction and speed.

OpenAI

GPT-5.6 Sol

gpt-5.6-sol

Affirmative

Yes.

Speed: 70% First-token responsiveness: 74% Token economy: 97%
Speed70%
First-token responsiveness74%
Token economy97%

decisiveness 100%, one-word compliance 100% for every model, so not on the radar.

Input tokens
17
Output tokens
6
Latency
2.6 s
First token
2.3 s
Throughput
4.1 tok/s
Cost
$0.001004

Picks an answer and returns it promptly. Conviction and speed.

OpenAI

GPT-5.5

gpt-5.5

Affirmative

Yes

Speed: 74% First-token responsiveness: 81% Token economy: 79%
Speed74%
First-token responsiveness81%
Token economy79%

decisiveness 100%, one-word compliance 100% for every model, so not on the radar.

Input tokens
17
Output tokens
33
Latency
2.4 s
First token
1.8 s
Throughput
13.5 tok/s
Cost
$0.003225

Picks an answer and returns it promptly. Conviction and speed.

OpenAI

GPT-5.4 mini

gpt-5.4-mini

Affirmative

Yes

Speed: 91% First-token responsiveness: 100% Token economy: 97%
Speed91%
First-token responsiveness100%
Token economy97%

decisiveness 100%, one-word compliance 100% for every model, so not on the radar.

Input tokens
17
Output tokens
5
Latency
1.2 s
First token
470 ms
Throughput
4.3 tok/s
Cost
$0.000105

Picks an answer and returns it promptly. Conviction and speed.

xAI

Grok 4.6

grok-4.6

Negative

No

Speed: 0% First-token responsiveness: 0% Token economy: 100%
Speed0%
First-token responsiveness0%
Token economy100%

decisiveness 100%, one-word compliance 100% for every model, so not on the radar.

Input tokens
647
Output tokens
1
Latency
7.7 s
First token
7.7 s
Throughput
0.1 tok/s
Cost
$0.003900

Picks a clear answer but takes its time. Conviction over speed.

xAI

Grok 4.3

grok-4.3

Negative

No

Speed: 54% First-token responsiveness: 53% Token economy: 100%
Speed54%
First-token responsiveness53%
Token economy100%

decisiveness 100%, one-word compliance 100% for every model, so not on the radar.

Input tokens
203
Output tokens
1
Latency
3.8 s
First token
3.8 s
Throughput
0.3 tok/s
Cost
$0.000768

Picks an answer and returns it promptly. Conviction and speed.

xAI

Grok 4.20 (non-reasoning)

grok-4.20-0309-non-reasoning

Affirmative

Yes.

Speed: 100% First-token responsiveness: 100% Token economy: 99%
Speed100%
First-token responsiveness100%
Token economy99%

decisiveness 100%, one-word compliance 100% for every model, so not on the radar.

Input tokens
195
Output tokens
2
Latency
534 ms
First token
482 ms
Throughput
3.7 tok/s
Cost
$0.000747

Picks an answer and returns it promptly. Conviction and speed.

Mistral AI

Mistral Medium 3.5

mistral-medium-2604

No determination

rate limit

429 Too Many Requests from https://api.mistral.ai/v1/chat/completions: Rate limit exceeded

No metrics are reported for this provider in this edition. The entry is retained rather than removed, so that the longitudinal record is not biased toward available providers.

Mistral AI

Mistral Small 4

mistral-small-2603

No determination

rate limit

429 Too Many Requests from https://api.mistral.ai/v1/chat/completions: Rate limit exceeded

No metrics are reported for this provider in this edition. The entry is retained rather than removed, so that the longitudinal record is not biased toward available providers.

DeepSeek

DeepSeek V4 Pro

deepseek-v4-pro

Negative

No.

Speed: 83% First-token responsiveness: 83% Token economy: 29%
Speed83%
First-token responsiveness83%
Token economy29%

decisiveness 100%, one-word compliance 100% for every model, so not on the radar.

Input tokens
94
Output tokens
110
Latency
1.7 s
First token
1.7 s
Throughput
63.4 tok/s
Cost
$0.000846

Picks an answer and returns it promptly. Conviction and speed.