Simon Willison

Jev introduces a new shape of LLM - System One, aka Decision Models

TypeSafe AI’s new model, Jev, is a ‘System One’ or decision model that takes text or semi‑structured data as input and outputs floating‑point probabilities for yes/no, choice, or score questions, rather than text. It charges only for input tokens ($0.042/million) and offers free output, making it cheaper and faster than typical LLMs. The API lets users build a state object (string, array, or key‑value pairs) and query it with multiple questions, receiving confidence scores and probability distributions for each answer.

Simon Willison
Oct 6

llm-openai-decisions 0.1a0

Simon Willison announces the release of the llm-openai-decisions 0.1a0 plugin, which interfaces with OpenAI’s new Jev-style Decisions API. The plugin, inspired by llm-typesafe, supports image and text input and offers the same three question types (yes/no, choices, scores) as Jev, with pricing at 10¢ per million input tokens. Installation is simple via `llm install llm-openai-decisions`, and an example query demonstrates image-based evaluation.

Towards Data Science
Oct 15

Jev Your Engines: Seven Open Decision Models vs. a Generative LLM

The article compares seven open decision models with a generative large language model (LLM) in a hands‑on repository called Jev. It evaluates each model based on routing accuracy, latency, and output reliability. The comparison provides practical insights into how these models perform in real‑world scenarios.

By Lambert Leong
arXiv Machine Learning
Oct 22

Our Own Jev: Typed Decisions in One Forward Pass, from an In-House Judge to Open LoRA Models

arXiv:2610. 29052v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: A typed decision maps evidence, a question and a fixed set of options to a probability for every option, computed in one forward pass, by reading a language model's logits or a small head over its hidden states, instead of generating and parsing text.

By Yuchuan Weng, Chi Liu, Xin Chen, Srinivasan Manoharan
Towards Data Science
Sep 25

Jev vs. LLMs: When AI Moves from Generation to Decision-Making

The article reports on a benchmark where the author evaluated TypeSafe AI’s Jev against large language models (LLMs) across 3,080 classification tasks, comparing metrics such as accuracy, latency, calibration, and confidence. It examines whether Jev can serve as a practical decision layer for AI systems, effectively moving AI from merely generating outputs to making informed decisions.

By Nhu Hoang
arXiv AI
Oct 16

System1-Arena: Which Decisions Can Be Left to System 1?

System1-Arena is a benchmark that evaluates which decisions can be handled by System‑1 models—those that output probabilities in a single forward pass—versus System‑2 models that generate reasoning steps. It contains 92,000 questions across 105 tasks from 268 public sources, grouped into text classification, applied decisions, evaluation and control, and agent/action, and also includes 138 closed‑loop environments such as web shopping, coding control, robotics, games, and driving. The study tests 30 models, showing that large System‑1 models can match or exceed fast closed LLMs in non‑agentic accuracy with better‑calibrated probabilities at lower latency, while reasoning LLMs are most accurate but far more expensive, and large open LLMs perform best in closed‑loop settings.

By Tianyu Chen, Xinyang Liu, Ruyi An, Zhendong Wang, Mingyuan Zhou
Towards Data Science
Oct 11

A Practical Guide to OpenAI's New Decisions API

The article titled "A Practical Guide to OpenAI's New Decisions API" was published on Towards Data Science. It poses the question, "Is this the JEV killer?", suggesting a discussion about the impact of OpenAI's new Decisions API. The post appears to explore practical aspects of using this API and its potential significance.

By Thomas Reid
Simon Willison
Oct 28

Quoting Ted Sanders

The article discusses how large language model (LLM) performance varies across many dimensions, noting that a single factor—model size—explains much of the variation. Larger models tend to be more reliable, cost more per token, and recall more obscure facts. It also explains OpenAI’s naming convention, where version numbers indicate release order, relatedness to other models, and the scale of improvement, using examples like Luna, Terra, Sol, and Astra.

Google AI Blog
Mar 14, 2024

Cappy: Outperforming and boosting large multi-task language models with a small scorer

Posted by Yun Zhu and Lijuan Liu, Software Engineers, Google Research Large language model (LLM) advancements have led to a new paradigm that unifies various natural language processing (NLP) tasks within an instruction-following framework. This paradigm is exemplified by recent multi-task LLMs, such as T0 , FLAN , and OPT-IML .

By Google AI
Simon Willison
Oct 23

Introducing Kimi K3.1 Pro

Simon Willison announces the release of Kimi K3.1 Pro on the Kimi API, noting it is not yet open‑weights but full weights will be available by Nov 4 2026. The model offers a high‑speed variant 2‑3× faster at double the price, with US dollar pricing of $2.00/million input tokens and $10/million output tokens—matching GPT‑6.1 Sol and half the cost of Claude Opus 5.5. Benchmarks from Moonshot show Kimi roughly on par with Opus 5.5 and GPT‑6 Astra, scoring 55 in Artificial Analysis, ahead of several competitors.

arXiv AI
Sep 25

NumericJev: Jev-like LLM Numerical Decoding with Multiway Decision Trees

NumericJev introduces a training‑free numerical decoding algorithm that allows large language models with Jev‑like structured‑choice interfaces to output precise numerical values. The method refines a numerical range using a multiway decision tree, achieving lower mean absolute error than direct selection from a candidate list. Experiments on an arithmetic benchmark show a 2.93 percentage‑point improvement, and a historical‑index study reports a 4.58% mean relative recall error with zero readout error when the value is supplied.

By Weiwei Ye, Hangchen Liu, Renhe Jiang