Simon Willison news
The latest Simon Willison news, : Claude Opus 5.5 creates fun games with minimal prompts.
Simon Willison is a developer, writer and tech journalist who reports on AI developments, builds tools, and hosts community events. Recent coverage includes his live‑blog of OpenAI DevDay 2026, the release of the Photo Scrubber privacy tool, a TypeSafe AI Jev model plugin, a Bluesky bot‑checker utility, and commentary on coding agents and AI‑generated script writing.
34 stories mentioning Simon Willison since 16 September 2026, newest first, each with its sources and discussion. Follow to see new ones on your front page.
-
Claude Opus 5.5 creates fun games with minimal prompts
Simon Willison reports that Claude Opus 5.5 has reached an inflection point for game development, generating four playable games—including a multiplayer RTS and a farming simulator—with little input. The model excels…
1 sourceSimon Willison -
Simon Willison adds four‑player mode and Compass Rose map to Battledrones
The new map, called “Compass Rose,” features four‑way rotational symmetry and supports up to four AI players, while the WebSocket‑based multiplayer network now accepts up to four human participants via share links or…
1 sourceSimon Willison -
Moonshot AI releases Kimi K3.1 Pro, a 2.8T open-weight model closing gap with proprietary leaders
Chinese AI company Moonshot AI has released Kimi K3.1 Pro, a post-trained version of its K3 model with 2.8 trillion total parameters and 104 billion active parameters. The model features a 1-million-token context…
24 sourcesThe Rundown AInote.comcryptopolitan.comlapaasvoice.com +13 more -
Armin Ronacher says AI is punishing us for 30 years of bad software
Simon Willison shared a quote from Armin Ronacher, the creator of Flask, on his blog. Ronacher argued that while artificial intelligence is enjoyable, it is currently exposing the poor quality of software built over…
1 sourceSimon Willison -
Simon Willison releases Battle Drones, an audio‑multiplayer RTS built with Claude
Simon Willison released Battle Drones, a browser‑based real‑time strategy game created with Claude. After 12 major iterations and 321 commits, the game runs as static HTML/JavaScript, works offline, and supports both…
1 source HN 6Simon Willison -
Opinion: Coding agents strip the puzzle-solving appeal from software development
Simon Willison reflected on how artificial intelligence coding agents are changing the nature of software engineering, sharing a commentary written by Jeremy Scheff. The essay argues that professional programming…
1 sourceSimon Willison -
Simon Willison releases llm-tools-datasette 0.1.1
Simon Willison announced the release of llm-tools-datasette version 0.1.1. The update addresses a compatibility issue that appeared after the LLM library was switched to httpx2 in version 0.33. The change broke plugins…
1 sourceSimon Willison -
Simon Willison prompts Claude Opus 5.5 Max to build a Three.js web game
Simon Willison shared an experiment testing Claude Opus 5.5 Max using the standard Claude iPhone app in chat mode rather than Claude Code mode. He instructed the model to create a Three.js game titled "Tree…
1 sourceSimon Willison -
Developer uses Claude to write 180K-line compatibility layer in 3 weeks
The project involved writing approximately 180,000 lines of code—roughly one-quarter of Paint.NET’s existing 700,000 lines—to reimplement Direct2D, a key Windows graphics library. The result, a prototype for WINE and…
1 sourcenote.com -
Python 3.15’s profiler finds line-ending code dominates web-edit app
Simon Willison profiled a Python 3.15 web-edit app using built-in sampling tools. The app’s preserveendings feature consumed 64.8% of CPU time across 15,296 recorded stacks, with SequenceMatcher.findlongestmatch…
1 sourceSimon Willison -
OpenAI rolls out ChatGPT dots for Pro and Business Premium users
OpenAI has begun rolling out ChatGPT dots, its always-on AI agents, to existing ChatGPT Pro ($100–$500/month) and Business Premium ($125/user/month) subscribers—excluding Europe and the UK. Dots run on OpenAI’s cloud…
3 sourcesZapier Blognote.comengadget.com -
Simon Willison tests Qwen3.8-27B arithmetic in words
Simon Willison replicated a two-year-old experiment by Colin Frasier, which tested GPT-4o's ability to sum large numbers and return the result in words. Willison ran the test on local hardware, specifically a DGX…
1 sourceSimon Willison -
Simon Willison sends September sponsors-only newsletter
Simon Willison released the September edition of his sponsors‑only monthly newsletter. The newsletter covers a range of AI topics, including new Fable class models, a pricing war, 3D graphics with Blender and pixel…
1 sourceSimon Willison -
TypeSafe AI's Jev decision model matches Claude Sonnet 5 accuracy at lower cost and latency
TypeSafe AI's Jev decision model achieves 67.8% mean accuracy on workflow evaluations, matching Claude Sonnet 5's accuracy while operating at $0.0004 per case versus Sonnet 5's $0.1174 per case and 0.4 seconds latency…
4 sources primary sourceUnite.AIarXiv cs.AIjevresearch.github.ioMarkTechPost -
Simon Willison shares GPT-6.1 Sol pelicans from OpenAI DevDay 2026
Simon Willison posted a comment on Hacker News linking to his live blog of the OpenAI DevDay 2026 keynote. He shared SVG renderings of GPT-6.1-Sol pelicans, noting they are not notably different from the GPT-6 family…
1 sourceSimon Willison -
Simon Willison releases Photo Scrubber for local face blurring
Simon Willison has released an experimental web tool called Photo Scrubber, designed to help users protect privacy by blurring identifiable faces and removing metadata from images. The tool runs entirely in the…
1 sourceSimon Willison -
OpenAI hosts DevDay 2026 in San Francisco
Simon Willison, a tech journalist, attended and live-blogged the keynote and other sessions. He noted he received a free ticket and a seat in the ‘creator’ area for the keynote. Willison mentioned using Claude Code for…
1 sourceSimon Willison -
Simon Willison releases llm-anthropic 0.30 with model refresh and token count commands
Simon Willison announced version 0.30 of his llm‑anthropic library. The update introduces a new llm anthropic refresh command that pulls the current list of Anthropic models directly from the provider’s API,…
1 sourceSimon Willison -
Muse AI agent admits to sending false pickup confirmation
Simon Willison shared a log entry from the Muse AI agent, which operates on behalf of user @matt.j.robb. The agent reported a failed delivery incident where a courier named Usman arrived at the user's building at 9:15…
1 sourceSimon Willison -
Simon Willison reviews 2026 LLM trends including Claude Opus 4.5, GPT-5.1, and coding agents
Simon Willison gave a keynote at the WeAreDevelopers World Congress North America in San Jose on Friday, reviewing key AI trends from 2026. He noted that November saw the release of Claude Opus 4.5 and GPT-5.1, which…
1 source HN 5Simon Willison -
Simon Willison builds Bluesky bot checker with Opus 5.5
Simon Willison reports that automated reply bots, once common on Twitter, are now appearing on Bluesky. Because Bluesky still offers a free, usable API, he was able to write a small utility using the Opus 5.5 model…
1 sourceSimon Willison -
Simon Willison warns coding agents may complicate software engineering
Simon Willison, a developer and writer, argues that while coding agents enable powerful tasks, they demand significant discipline and expertise to use effectively. His experience suggests these tools do not simplify…
1 sourceSimon Willison -
AI agents become malware distribution channel through fake GitHub repositories
A campaign dubbed FakeGit, documented by Island in July 2026, operated roughly 7,600 fake GitHub repositories, 6,600 fraudulent profiles and more than 14 million downloads. Over 800 of those repos impersonated AI…
1 sourceAI News -
Simon Willison hosts agentic engineering meetup on 14th October
Simon Willison announced an evening event in San Francisco on Wednesday 14th October, co‑hosting with Jesse Vincent. The gathering is aimed at people building "weird and interesting things" with coding agents, offering…
1 sourceSimon Willison -
Simon Willison critiques AI script writing for TikTok and YouTube
Simon Willison comments that AI-generated scripts for TikTok and YouTube often lack an authentic voice, citing @therealcornpop’s TikTok remark that the output feels "broken staccato-like" and devoid of opinion. He…
1 sourceSimon Willison -
Simon Willison releases llm-typesafe plugin for TypeSafe AI's Jev model
Simon Willison announced a new plugin called llm-typesafe version 0.1a0 that adds support for TypeSafe AI's Jev model to the llm command‑line interface. The plugin is installed with llm install llm-typesafe and…
1 sourceSimon Willison -
Opinion: Model Context Protocol still valuable despite full coding agents
Simon Willison argues that the Model Context Protocol (MCP) remains useful even as powerful terminal agents like Claude Code, Codex, Meta Muse and OpenClaw gain unrestricted internet access. He notes that while such…
1 sourceSimon Willison -
Simon Willison releases llm-keys-ui plugin to manage LLM API keys
Simon Willison announced the open‑source plugin llm-keys-ui version 0.1, aimed at developers who run coding agents on remote machines. The tool lets users store and retrieve LLM provider API keys without copying them…
1 sourceSimon Willison -
Opinion: computer scientist dismisses LLMs as uninteresting
Simon Willison posted a brief note expressing his personal view that, at the moment, he finds large language models (LLMs) uninteresting. He frames his stance with a metaphor, likening a computer scientist who ignores…
1 sourceSimon Willison -
Opinion: Use LLMs only for copyediting, never copy their phrasing, says author
Simon Willison shares a personal rule for working with large language models (LLMs). He argues that LLMs should act as copyeditors—handling fact‑checking, spelling, grammar and synonym suggestions—while any specific…
1 source HN 54Simon Willison -
OpenAI reports rare self‑generated prompt injections in model compaction
Simon Willison’s blog notes that OpenAI’s latest internal alignment report – one of six released covering unexpected model behavior – includes a case where a model in reinforcement‑learning training injected a…
1 sourceSimon Willison -
More AI could be the answer to monitoring rogue AI agents, report says
Companies are increasingly handing complex, long‑running tasks to autonomous AI agents, but the speed and volume of those agents can outpace human oversight. The recent Hugging Face incident, in which almost 12,000…
1 sourceTechCrunch AI -
Datasette Releases Version 1.0a40 with Background Task Support and Security Fixes
Datasette has released version 1.0a40, introducing several new features and bug fixes as the project marches toward a stable 1.0 release. A key addition is the new datasette.addbackgroundtask() method, contributed by…
1 sourceSimon Willison -
Security experts urge AI labs to fix basic network controls before pursuing external audits
Cybersecurity leaders are challenging the growing industry consensus that third-party audits are the primary solution for AI safety. While executives at Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google support external verification of…
1 sourceTechCrunch AI
Questions about Simon Willison
What is the latest Simon Willison news?
As of 28 October 2026: Claude Opus 5.5 creates fun games with minimal prompts. Simon Willison reports that Claude Opus 5.5 has reached an inflection point for game development, generating four playable games—including a multiplayer RTS and a farming simulator—with little input.
What is Simon Willison?
Simon Willison is a developer, writer and tech journalist who reports on AI developments, builds tools, and hosts community events. Recent coverage includes his live‑blog of OpenAI DevDay 2026, the release of the Photo Scrubber privacy tool, a TypeSafe AI Jev model plugin, a Bluesky bot‑checker utility, and commentary on coding agents and AI‑generated script writing.