Independent AI researcher, creator of datasette.io and llm.datasette.io, building open source tools for data journalism, writing about a lot of stuff at https://simonwillison.net/https://bsky.app/profile/simonwillison.nethttps://bsky.app/profile/simonwillison.net/post/3muk4vfcq2k2fI wrote some notes on what's new in the (published) Fable 5.1 system prompt in comparison to Fable 5 - it's mostly about not reproducing song lyrics and avoiding drawing copyrighted characters https://simonwillison.net/2026/Sep/2/claudes-new-system-prompt/02 Sep 2026 14:18 +0000at://did:plc:kft6lu4trxowqmter2b6vg6z/app.bsky.feed.post/3muk4vfcq2k2fhttps://bsky.app/profile/simonwillison.net/post/3muiostsf622uIn another case of it being quicker to build a tool than hunt around to find something that does what you need, here's a little vibe-coded thing for turning one or more GeoJSON shapes into a rendered PNG https://simonwillison.net/2026/Sep/1/geojson/02 Sep 2026 00:34 +0000at://did:plc:kft6lu4trxowqmter2b6vg6z/app.bsky.feed.post/3muiostsf622uhttps://bsky.app/profile/simonwillison.net/post/3muimzxo2sk2gA few notes on Anthropic's new Claude Fable 5.1 - with Max thinking level I got the best SVG pelican I've had from any Anthropic model (at a hefty cost of $3.30!), which I then had it animate https://simonwillison.net/2026/Sep/1/claude-fable-5-1/02 Sep 2026 00:02 +0000at://did:plc:kft6lu4trxowqmter2b6vg6z/app.bsky.feed.post/3muimzxo2sk2ghttps://bsky.app/profile/simonwillison.net/post/3mui4h3h76223Just noticed the ChatGPT desktop app (previously named Codex) bundles a full copy of the LibreOffice open source office suite, tucked away in a hidden folder in the ~/.cache directory01 Sep 2026 19:05 +0000at://did:plc:kft6lu4trxowqmter2b6vg6z/app.bsky.feed.post/3mui4h3h76223https://bsky.app/profile/simonwillison.net/post/3mug5sklu4c2pBest news all year! [contains quote post or other embedded content]01 Sep 2026 00:24 +0000at://did:plc:kft6lu4trxowqmter2b6vg6z/app.bsky.feed.post/3mug5sklu4c2phttps://bsky.app/profile/simonwillison.net/post/3mufeho5l4s2kIn local news, the tunnel between Pacifica and Half Moon Bay had some maintenance recently and now it screams31 Aug 2026 16:50 +0000at://did:plc:kft6lu4trxowqmter2b6vg6z/app.bsky.feed.post/3mufeho5l4s2khttps://bsky.app/profile/simonwillison.net/post/3mudmaynuz22cHere's my attempt at explaining what ChatGPT Work can actually do - it's a deeply confusing but extremely powerful tool with a whole lot of useful features that aren't available in regular ChatGPT https://simonwillison.net/2026/Aug/30/understanding-chatgpt-work/31 Aug 2026 00:05 +0000at://did:plc:kft6lu4trxowqmter2b6vg6z/app.bsky.feed.post/3mudmaynuz22chttps://bsky.app/profile/simonwillison.net/post/3mu5443unn22sMy LLM cliché highlighter is up to 38 patterns now https://tools.simonwillison.net/llm-cliche-highlighter28 Aug 2026 10:00 +0000at://did:plc:kft6lu4trxowqmter2b6vg6z/app.bsky.feed.post/3mu5443unn22shttps://bsky.app/profile/simonwillison.net/post/3mtbxjub6ms26This is the genuine logo used by the Amazon location that destructively scans books [contains quote post or other embedded content]17 Aug 2026 14:56 +0000at://did:plc:kft6lu4trxowqmter2b6vg6z/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtbxjub6ms26https://bsky.app/profile/simonwillison.net/post/3mta6urbgf22bHeees my review of Qwen 3.8 27B - I can't remember the last time I've had this much fun playing with a local model that runs on my own computers https://simonwillison.net/2026/Aug/16/qwen-38-27b/16 Aug 2026 22:02 +0000at://did:plc:kft6lu4trxowqmter2b6vg6z/app.bsky.feed.post/3mta6urbgf22bhttps://bsky.app/profile/simonwillison.net/post/3mt4xrhnjz225Qwen 3.8 27B in its default reasoning settings in LM Studio of "extra high" is a chronic over-thinker and I kind of love it15 Aug 2026 15:17 +0000at://did:plc:kft6lu4trxowqmter2b6vg6z/app.bsky.feed.post/3mt4xrhnjz225https://bsky.app/profile/simonwillison.net/post/3mt3pp4emz222Got a photo of Morris, a local celebrity: the only known Northern Gannet in the entire Pacific Ocean https://simonwillison.net/2026/Aug/15/sighting-391300422/15 Aug 2026 03:20 +0000at://did:plc:kft6lu4trxowqmter2b6vg6z/app.bsky.feed.post/3mt3pp4emz222https://bsky.app/profile/simonwillison.net/post/3mt2ynhrlk22zThe new Qwen 3.7 27B, running as a 17GB GGUF in LM Studio on my M5 Max MacBook Pro, just drew me the best pelican riding a bicycle I've seen from any model that runs on my laptop14 Aug 2026 20:27 +0000at://did:plc:kft6lu4trxowqmter2b6vg6z/app.bsky.feed.post/3mt2ynhrlk22zhttps://bsky.app/profile/simonwillison.net/post/3msz2okp6d22fWatching Silo genuinely makes me want to hook up some generative AI abomination that rewrites every frame to make it look like they turned the lights on14 Aug 2026 01:58 +0000at://did:plc:kft6lu4trxowqmter2b6vg6z/app.bsky.feed.post/3msz2okp6d22fhttps://bsky.app/profile/simonwillison.net/post/3msjr3mlnz22xThanks to the video from the Black Hat security conference of OpenAI's presentation about "The Hugging Face Incident" we now have a detailed timeline of what happened from OpenAI's perspective - I wrote up the details here, it's pretty wild https://simonwillison.net/2026/Aug/7/openai-timeline/07 Aug 2026 23:57 +0000at://did:plc:kft6lu4trxowqmter2b6vg6z/app.bsky.feed.post/3msjr3mlnz22xhttps://bsky.app/profile/simonwillison.net/post/3mseqv5z4qk2zOne of the things the pelican benchmark is still useful for is visually representing (to a tiny extent) the improvements in a single model family Here's Meta AI's Spark (8th April), Spark 1.1 (9th July), and Spark 1.2 (today, 5th August) https://simonwillison.net/2026/Aug/5/muse-code-and-muse-spark-12/06 Aug 2026 00:10 +0000at://did:plc:kft6lu4trxowqmter2b6vg6z/app.bsky.feed.post/3mseqv5z4qk2zhttps://bsky.app/profile/simonwillison.net/post/3msepngc2kk26Just had to create an "accidental-cyberattacks" tag on my blog We're up to four now: the original OpenAI+Hugging Face one, Anthropic's me-too attacks, then two new ones from the UK AI Safety Institute and Irregular that OpenAI reported yesterday https://simonwillison.net/tags/accidental-cyberattacks/05 Aug 2026 23:47 +0000at://did:plc:kft6lu4trxowqmter2b6vg6z/app.bsky.feed.post/3msepngc2kk26https://bsky.app/profile/simonwillison.net/post/3msed56zylc2cFour years ago today I tweeted a concept for a "Raccoon Heist" video game, product description generated by GPT-3 and concept "art" created by DALL-E Today I fed those assets into Fable 5 and had it build full working game, single shot prompt, no feedback from me https://simonwillison.net/2026/Aug/5/raccoon-heist/05 Aug 2026 20:04 +0000at://did:plc:kft6lu4trxowqmter2b6vg6z/app.bsky.feed.post/3msed56zylc2chttps://bsky.app/profile/simonwillison.net/post/3msectisgws27Apparently peak golf course construction in the USA was in 1999, with 509 golf courses opened in that single year! https://archive.lib.msu.edu/tic/holen/article/2000may28.pdf [contains quote post or other embedded content]05 Aug 2026 19:58 +0000at://did:plc:kft6lu4trxowqmter2b6vg6z/app.bsky.feed.post/3msectisgws27https://bsky.app/profile/simonwillison.net/post/3msc7zqolvk2bBig new release of my LLM CLI tool and Python library for talking to hundreds of different LLMs - reasoning traces, OpenAI Responses support, server-side tools, smarter logging and a whole lot more https://simonwillison.net/2026/Aug/4/new-release-of-llm/05 Aug 2026 00:03 +0000at://did:plc:kft6lu4trxowqmter2b6vg6z/app.bsky.feed.post/3msc7zqolvk2bhttps://bsky.app/profile/simonwillison.net/post/3msbpz3kmak27The MiniMax-H3 video generation model is a lot of fun - here's what I generated on my M5 Pro Mac for the prompt "a rainbow colored skunk leaps over a mossy log in a supermarket" (~115GB model download, took around 45 minutes to generate) - notes on how I ran it here https://simonwillison.net/2026/Aug/4/minimax-h3-mlx/04 Aug 2026 19:16 +0000at://did:plc:kft6lu4trxowqmter2b6vg6z/app.bsky.feed.post/3msbpz3kmak27https://bsky.app/profile/simonwillison.net/post/3ms7ccvfvbk2rQuestion for dog companions: are you aware that "nose work" is a sport you can participate in with your dog? We've been doing it with Cleo and it is ABSURDLY fun. Dogs have to find 3 different official hidden scents (clove, anise, birch) - you have to accompany them and call it when they find them03 Aug 2026 20:06 +0000at://did:plc:kft6lu4trxowqmter2b6vg6z/app.bsky.feed.post/3ms7ccvfvbk2rhttps://bsky.app/profile/simonwillison.net/post/3ms42wydw4k2hHere's my attempt at summarizing the various "open letters" about AI development that have been doing the rounds over the past few weeks https://simonwillison.net/2026/Aug/2/open-letters/02 Aug 2026 13:16 +0000at://did:plc:kft6lu4trxowqmter2b6vg6z/app.bsky.feed.post/3ms42wydw4k2h