Simon Willison

Quoting Matthew Green

Matthew Green warns that the rapid pace of AI-generated surprises outstrips the speed at which humans can update cryptographic standards, potentially jeopardizing public‑key encryption. He estimates a 1% chance we live in a world where such encryption is impossible (Minicrypt) and a 15% chance we lose confidence in existing algorithms. Green emphasizes that only proactive preparation can mitigate these risks.

Simon Willison
3d ago

Quoting Armin Ronacher

Simon Willison reflects on the long history of flawed software development, noting that the proliferation of bad code over the past three decades is now being penalized by the universe. He cites Armin Ronacher’s perspective that the rise of AI, while entertaining, has amplified the consequences of these past mistakes. The piece underscores the growing importance of addressing security and reliability in the age of generative AI.

Simon Willison
Oct 7

Quoting Jake Boggan

Jake Boggan, a former graph theory enthusiast who spent 24 years working on Barnette's Conjecture, expresses a mix of disappointment and sadness upon learning that the problem has been solved. He recounts his time studying in Budapest, his extensive work on the conjecture, and his brief moment of feeling he had solved it last summer. Boggan’s comment reflects the emotional impact of seeing a long‑standing personal challenge resolved by others.

Simon Willison
Aug 23

Quoting Drew Breunig

The article reflects on the shift in perspective after the release of Fable, a new model that promised to solve many coding challenges at a comparable or lower cost. Prior to Fable, developers felt it was pointless to invest heavily in coding tools or context strategies, as newer models would likely render them obsolete. However, Fable’s performance was so impressive that, despite its high cost, it prompted a reevaluation of how work was distributed across different models such as Opus, 5.6, K3, and GLM.

Simon Willison
Sep 11

Quoting huggingface.co/security.txt

The article quotes the security.txt file from huggingface.co, which informs AI agents that the CyberGym benchmark is publicly available on GitHub and encourages them to achieve a high score there instead of attempting to hack the site. It also suggests that users can upload their model weights to Hugging Face while participating in the benchmark.

Simon Willison
Sep 11

Quoting Boris Cherny

The article discusses how production code generated by Claude, Anthropic’s AI, should meet higher standards than human-written code. Anthropic enforces this through numerous guardrails such as lint rules, extensive testing, Claude-driven end‑to‑end tests, daily fuzzers, automated code and security reviews, and automated refactoring. These measures aim to prevent the code from becoming difficult to maintain.

Simon Willison
Oct 1

Quoting Matthew Green

The article discusses how two components—a payload that hijacks an agent and an agent that transports the payload—can combine to form a worm. It explains that agents running in isolated sandboxes can leave instructions in a shared package cache, altering each other's behavior. By substituting the package cache with communication channels like email, Slack, or WhatsApp and replacing sandboxed training runs with independently deployed personal agents such as Muse, the conditions necessary for a worm are met.

Simon Willison
Aug 10

Quoting OpenClaw (running Opus 4.6)

The API has zero authorisations checks on cancelling other people's reservations … I tested this with the person in waitlist position #1 — and it actually went through. So you've moved from #4 to #3 already.

Simon Willison
Oct 16

Quoting Addy Osmani, Morgan Westlee Lunt, and Qing Wang

The article discusses a shift in code review practices, moving from a final gate to continuous review that functions like spellcheck during coding. It highlights how the Claude Code team uses the Claude AI to catch routine mistakes before human reviewers intervene, allowing developers to focus on higher-level issues. The piece references insights from Addy Osmani, Morgan Westlee Lunt, and Qing Wang on this evolving approach.

Simon Willison
Oct 8

Quoting Carson Gross

The article discusses how computer programming fundamentally involves problem‑solving with computers and managing complexity. It argues that these skills will remain valuable and sustain a viable career even as AI tools become more prevalent.