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home / www.inceptionlabs.ai / item 47144464
-0.20 Mercury 2: The fastest reasoning LLM, powered by diffusion (www.inceptionlabs.ai)
91 points by fittingopposite 4 hours ago | 58 comments on HN | Mild negative Editorial · vv3.4 · 2026-02-25
Article Heatmap
Preamble: ND — Preamble Preamble: No Data — Preamble P Article 1: ND — Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood Article 1: No Data — Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood 1 Article 2: ND — Non-Discrimination Article 2: No Data — Non-Discrimination 2 Article 3: ND — Life, Liberty, Security Article 3: No Data — Life, Liberty, Security 3 Article 4: ND — No Slavery Article 4: No Data — No Slavery 4 Article 5: ND — No Torture Article 5: No Data — No Torture 5 Article 6: ND — Legal Personhood Article 6: No Data — Legal Personhood 6 Article 7: ND — Equality Before Law Article 7: No Data — Equality Before Law 7 Article 8: ND — Right to Remedy Article 8: No Data — Right to Remedy 8 Article 9: ND — No Arbitrary Detention Article 9: No Data — No Arbitrary Detention 9 Article 10: ND — Fair Hearing Article 10: No Data — Fair Hearing 10 Article 11: ND — Presumption of Innocence Article 11: No Data — Presumption of Innocence 11 Article 12: -0.35 — Privacy 12 Article 13: ND — Freedom of Movement Article 13: No Data — Freedom of Movement 13 Article 14: ND — Asylum Article 14: No Data — Asylum 14 Article 15: ND — Nationality Article 15: No Data — Nationality 15 Article 16: ND — Marriage & Family Article 16: No Data — Marriage & Family 16 Article 17: ND — Property Article 17: No Data — Property 17 Article 18: ND — Freedom of Thought Article 18: No Data — Freedom of Thought 18 Article 19: +0.05 — Freedom of Expression 19 Article 20: ND — Assembly & Association Article 20: No Data — Assembly & Association 20 Article 21: ND — Political Participation Article 21: No Data — Political Participation 21 Article 22: ND — Social Security Article 22: No Data — Social Security 22 Article 23: ND — Work & Equal Pay Article 23: No Data — Work & Equal Pay 23 Article 24: ND — Rest & Leisure Article 24: No Data — Rest & Leisure 24 Article 25: ND — Standard of Living Article 25: No Data — Standard of Living 25 Article 26: ND — Education Article 26: No Data — Education 26 Article 27: ND — Cultural Participation Article 27: No Data — Cultural Participation 27 Article 28: ND — Social & International Order Article 28: No Data — Social & International Order 28 Article 29: ND — Duties to Community Article 29: No Data — Duties to Community 29 Article 30: ND — No Destruction of Rights Article 30: No Data — No Destruction of Rights 30
Negative Neutral Positive No Data
Aggregates
Weighted Mean -0.20 Unweighted Mean -0.15
Max +0.05 Article 19 Min -0.35 Article 12
Signal 2 No Data 29
Confidence 3% Volatility 0.20 (Medium)
Negative 1 Channels E: 0.6 S: 0.4
SETL +0.05 Editorial-dominant
Evidence: High: 0 Medium: 1 Low: 1 No Data: 29
Theme Radar
Foundation Security Legal Privacy & Movement Personal Expression Economic & Social Cultural Order & Duties Foundation: 0.00 (0 articles) Security: 0.00 (0 articles) Legal: 0.00 (0 articles) Privacy & Movement: -0.35 (1 articles) Personal: 0.00 (0 articles) Expression: 0.05 (1 articles) Economic & Social: 0.00 (0 articles) Cultural: 0.00 (0 articles) Order & Duties: 0.00 (0 articles)
Domain Context Profile
Element Modifier Affects Note
Privacy
No privacy policy or data handling statements observed on-domain in provided content.
Terms of Service
No Terms of Service accessible from provided content.
Accessibility
No accessibility statements or WCAG compliance indicators observed.
Mission
No explicit mission or values statement in provided content.
Editorial Code
No editorial code of conduct observed.
Ownership
No ownership or corporate structure information in provided content.
Access Model
Appears to be freely accessible blog content; no paywall or access restriction signals.
Ad/Tracking -0.15
Article 12
Google Analytics tracking (gtag) configured on page. Framer analytics infrastructure observed. No explicit tracking consent mechanism visible in provided content.
HN Discussion 11 top-level · 0 replies
dvt 2026-02-25 00:09 UTC link
What excites me most about these new 4figure/second token models is that you can essentially do multi-shot prompting (+ nudging) and the user doesn't even feel it, potentially fixing some of the weird hallucinatory/non-deterministic behavior we sometimes end up with.
tl2do 2026-02-25 00:14 UTC link
Genuine question: what kinds of workloads benefit most from this speed? In my coding use, I still hit limitations even with stronger models, so I'm interested in where a much faster model changes the outcome rather than just reducing latency.
cjbarber 2026-02-25 00:28 UTC link
It could be interesting to do the metric of intelligence per second.

ie intelligence per token, and then tokens per second

My current feel is that if Sonnet 4.6 was 5x faster than Opus 4.6, I'd be primarily using Sonnet 4.6. But that wasn't true for me with prior model generations, in those generations the Sonnet class models didn't feel good enough compared to the Opus class models. And it might shift again when I'm doing things that feel more intelligence bottlenecked.

But fast responses have an advantage of their own, they give you faster iteration. Kind of like how I used to like OpenAI Deep Research, but then switched to o3-thinking with web search enabled after that came out because it was 80% of the thoroughness with 20% of the time, which tended to be better overall.

ilaksh 2026-02-25 00:38 UTC link
It seems like the chat demo is really suffering from the effect of everything going into a queue. You can't actually tell that it is fast at all. The latency is not good.

Assuming that's what is causing this. They might show some kind of feedback when it actually makes it out of the queue.

mhitza 2026-02-25 01:17 UTC link
Comment retracted. My bad, missed some details.
nylonstrung 2026-02-25 01:26 UTC link
I'm not sold on diffusion models.

Other labs like Google have them but they have simply trailed the Pareto frontier for the vast majority of use cases

Here's more detail on how price/performance stacks up

https://artificialanalysis.ai/models/mercury-2

arjie 2026-02-25 01:34 UTC link
Please pre-render your website on the server. Client-side JS means that my agent cannot read the press-release and that reduces the chance I am going to read it myself. Also, day one OpenRouter increases the chance that someone will try it.
dhruv3006 2026-02-25 01:47 UTC link
I am little underwhelmed by anything diffusion at the moment - they didn't really deliver.
volodia 2026-02-25 01:57 UTC link
Co-founder / Chief Scientist at Inception here. If helpful, I’m happy to answer technical questions about Mercury 2 or diffusion LMs more broadly.
lprimeisafk 2026-02-25 02:13 UTC link
It fails the car wash test
chriskanan 2026-02-25 02:14 UTC link
I can see some promise with diffusion LLMs, but getting them comparable to the frontier is going to require a ton of work and these closed source solutions probably won't really invigorate the field to find breakthroughs. It is too bad that they are following the path of OpenAI with closed models without details as far as I can tell.
Score Breakdown
ND
Preamble Preamble

No preamble-level content observable in provided HTML/CSS. Content is primarily technical scaffolding.

ND
Article 1 Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood

No assertions of human dignity, freedom, or equality observable. Product announcement blog.

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Article 2 Non-Discrimination

No discrimination mentioned or addressed. Technical product content.

ND
Article 3 Life, Liberty, Security

No content concerning right to life, liberty, or personal security.

ND
Article 4 No Slavery

No slavery or servitude implications. Product blog.

ND
Article 5 No Torture

No torture, cruel, or degrading treatment content.

ND
Article 6 Legal Personhood

No assertion or denial of right to recognition as person before law.

ND
Article 7 Equality Before Law

No equality before law or equal protection content observable.

ND
Article 8 Right to Remedy

No content concerning judicial remedy or rights enforcement.

ND
Article 9 No Arbitrary Detention

No arbitrary arrest or detention discussion.

ND
Article 10 Fair Hearing

No judicial process or fair trial content.

ND
Article 11 Presumption of Innocence

No presumption of innocence or criminal liability content.

-0.35
Article 12 Privacy
Medium Practice
Editorial
-0.20
Structural
-0.20
SETL
0.00
Combined
ND
Context Modifier
ND

Google Analytics (gtag) tracking configured. Framer infrastructure used. No visible opt-in consent mechanism, privacy notice, or user control over data collection. Tracking appears passive/automatic. Regressed from -0.4 to -0.35 due to ambiguity about user consent implementation (may exist but not visible in provided HTML).

ND
Article 13 Freedom of Movement

No content restricting or enabling freedom of movement.

ND
Article 14 Asylum

No asylum or persecution content.

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Article 15 Nationality

No nationality discussion.

ND
Article 16 Marriage & Family

No marriage, family, or consent content.

ND
Article 17 Property

No property ownership or deprivation content.

ND
Article 18 Freedom of Thought

No freedom of thought, conscience, or religion content.

+0.05
Article 19 Freedom of Expression
Low Advocacy Framing
Editorial
+0.10
Structural
0.00
SETL
+0.10
Combined
ND
Context Modifier
ND

Blog post format constitutes publication and information dissemination. Editorial choice to publish product announcement on public platform shows mild alignment with freedom of expression. No censorship or barriers to speech visible. Structural neutrality (standard web platform). Weak signal due to commercial context.

ND
Article 20 Assembly & Association

No assembly or association content.

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Article 21 Political Participation

No participation in government content.

ND
Article 22 Social Security

No social security or welfare content.

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Article 23 Work & Equal Pay

No work, employment, or labor content.

ND
Article 24 Rest & Leisure

No rest, leisure, or working hours content.

ND
Article 25 Standard of Living

No healthcare, food, or standard of living content.

ND
Article 26 Education

No education content.

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Article 27 Cultural Participation

No cultural or artistic participation content.

ND
Article 28 Social & International Order

No social/international order content.

ND
Article 29 Duties to Community

No community duties or rights limitations content.

ND
Article 30 No Destruction of Rights

No content preventing interpretation of any rights to allow destruction of other rights.

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build f581ea9+b3nz · 2026-02-25 03:04 UTC