Simon Willison

The way they implemented it, they just gave their members a credit card to go to the cinema with.

The way they implemented it, they just gave their members a credit card to go to the cinema with.

I'll say one more thing about OpenAI. They've lost so much talent. They keep on losing top researchers because if you're a top researcher at AI, a VC will give you $100 million for your own thing. And they seem to have a retention problem. They've lost a lot of the... My favorite fact about Anthropic, the company that they've clawed, they were formed by OpenAI Splinter Group.

I'll say one more thing about OpenAI. They've lost so much talent. They keep on losing top researchers because if you're a top researcher at AI, a VC will give you $100 million for your own thing. And they seem to have a retention problem. They've lost a lot of the... My favorite fact about Anthropic, the company that they've clawed, they were formed by OpenAI Splinter Group.

who split off, it turns out, because they tried to get Sam Altman fired a year before that other incident where everyone tried to get Sam Altman fired, and that failed, and so they left and started Anthropic. Like, that seems to be a running pattern for that company now.

who split off, it turns out, because they tried to get Sam Altman fired a year before that other incident where everyone tried to get Sam Altman fired, and that failed, and so they left and started Anthropic. Like, that seems to be a running pattern for that company now.

I'm going to have to rave about Waymo for a moment because if you're in San Francisco, it is the best tourist attraction in the city is an $11 Waymo ride. It's ultimate living in the future. My wife's parents were visiting and we did the thing where you book a Waymo and don't tell them that it's going to be a Waymo.

I'm going to have to rave about Waymo for a moment because if you're in San Francisco, it is the best tourist attraction in the city is an $11 Waymo ride. It's ultimate living in the future. My wife's parents were visiting and we did the thing where you book a Waymo and don't tell them that it's going to be a Waymo.

And so you just go, oh, here's our car to take us to lunch and the self-driving car.

And so you just go, oh, here's our car to take us to lunch and the self-driving car.

The Waymo moment is you sit in a Waymo and for the first two minutes, you're terrified and you're hyper vision looking at everything. And after about five minutes, you've forgotten. You're just relaxed and enjoying the fact that it's not swearing at people and swerving across lanes and driving incredibly slowly and incredibly safely. Yeah, no, I'm impressed by them.

The Waymo moment is you sit in a Waymo and for the first two minutes, you're terrified and you're hyper vision looking at everything. And after about five minutes, you've forgotten. You're just relaxed and enjoying the fact that it's not swearing at people and swerving across lanes and driving incredibly slowly and incredibly safely. Yeah, no, I'm impressed by them.

That's a really interesting question. I mean, the big problem here is that what is the financial incentive to release an open model? You know, at the moment, it's all about effectively, like, you can use it to establish yourself as a force within the AI industry, and that's worth blowing some money on, but...

That's a really interesting question. I mean, the big problem here is that what is the financial incentive to release an open model? You know, at the moment, it's all about effectively, like, you can use it to establish yourself as a force within the AI industry, and that's worth blowing some money on, but...

At what point do people want to get a return on their millions of dollars of training costs that they're using to release these models? Yeah, I don't know. Some of the models are actually real open source licensed now. I think the Microsoft Fi models are MIT licensed. At least some of the Qen models from China are under Apache 2 license.

At what point do people want to get a return on their millions of dollars of training costs that they're using to release these models? Yeah, I don't know. Some of the models are actually real open source licensed now. I think the Microsoft Fi models are MIT licensed. At least some of the Qen models from China are under Apache 2 license.

So we've actually got real open source licenses being used at least for the weights. The other really interesting thing is the underlying training data. The criticism of these AI models has always been, how can it even pull itself open source if you can't get at the source code, which is the training data? And because the source code is all ripped off, you can't slap an Apache license on that.

So we've actually got real open source licenses being used at least for the weights. The other really interesting thing is the underlying training data. The criticism of these AI models has always been, how can it even pull itself open source if you can't get at the source code, which is the training data? And because the source code is all ripped off, you can't slap an Apache license on that.

That just doesn't work.

That just doesn't work.