AI BriefingSimon Willison news
The latest AI and developer news from Simon Willison, with short summaries.
Visit website →How to use LLM in a script shebang
Introduced a way to run the LLM CLI like a script by putting it in the shebang line.
Shopify learns in public Slack
Shopify runs River in public Slack to grow a learning culture.
NYT Corrects AI-Generated Quote Error
The New York Times corrected a quote error generated by AI and replaced it with the original remarks.
Andrew Quinn: Some Wheels Need Reinventing
Andrew Quinn argues you have to reinvent some wheels yourself to reach the frontier.
Luke Curley points out WebRTC's limitations
Luke Curley criticized WebRTC for dropping audio and prompts in order to achieve low latency.
Claude Code, the Surprising Utility of HTML
For Claude Code output, HTML is better suited than Markdown for richer explanations.
llm-gemini 0.31 Released
In llm-gemini 0.31, Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite has transitioned to a stable version.
Big Words, a URL-based slide tool
Simon Willison built Big Words, a tool that creates simple slides from a URL.
Mozilla Strengthens Firefox Security with Claude Mythos
Mozilla used Claude Mythos Preview to find and fix hundreds of Firefox security vulnerabilities.
xAI Leases Colossus 1 to Anthropic
Anthropic is leasing xAI's Colossus 1, sparking environmental controversy.
GitHub Repo Stats Tool Released
A tool for viewing GitHub repository statistics directly in the browser has been released.
Live Coverage of Code w/ Claude 2026
Simon Willison is providing live coverage of Anthropic's Code w/ Claude 2026 on-site.
The Boundary of AI Coding Is Blurring
Simon Willison says that as AI coding tools become more sophisticated, the line between vibe coding and agentic engineering is blurring in practice.
AI Runs a Café Experiment in Stockholm
Andon Labs's AI café experiment led to absurd orders and harm to outside parties.
datasette-llm 0.1a7 released
The LLM plugin for Datasette, datasette-llm 0.1a7, adds the ability to set default options per model.
llm-echo 0.5a0 released
llm-echo 0.5a0, which provides a fake echo model for LLM, has been released.
YC estimated to hold 0.6% stake in OpenAI
John Gruber reported that Y Combinator's stake in OpenAI is about 0.6%.
Granite 4.1 3B SVG Pelican
21 GGUF variants of Granite 4.1 3B were tested with pelican SVG generation, but the results were poor.
Rebuttal to the data center land controversy
Andy Masley rebutted the claim that the data center land controversy is exaggerated.
April 2026 Newsletter
Simon Willison sent out the April 2026 newsletter for $10/month sponsors.