Simon @spoltier@qoto.org

people are framing Fablegate as an “AI pause”, but i don’t think any development is stopping or slowing

I got my PhD almost exactly 10 years ago. I have a permanent position as an academic at a reasonable research university. I have held some version of this position for the last 8.5 years. I am also a brown woman who is much shorter than average, and I don't wear makeup. At conferences, I go out of my way to talk to students to meet new faces, and also to help them build a network. All of this is just context for the rant that is incoming.

Over the last 10 years, in more or less every research event I go to, someone has asked me if I am a student. I proceed to explain that I am not. I have mostly no problem with the people who apologise at this point and move on.

But a majority of people double down at this point. With things like: "but you look so young" or "take it as a compliment" or "so... <dubious look> postdoc?" or "I thought you were a student of <slightly older white tall male collaborator>'s".

This needs to stop! It's not a compliment - they're implicitly disregarding 10 years' worth of my work. On one hand it tells me that they're placing me (in their mind) on the bottom rung of the academic ladder. On the other hand it also exposes their biases, which is a whole problem in itself.

I have definitely made incorrect assumptions about someone's "academic level" in the past, but over the years I have learned to know better.

So, PSA to everyone. Don't assume, ask. Or better yet, don't try to rank people from the outset. It will go a long way towards making events more inclusive.

#academicchatter #rant #academia

oh it’s real????

ADVANCED AIRHORN TUTORIAL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttDQRBQEyBs

After two days with Claude Fable 5 the best way I can describe it is "relentlessly proactive" - here's an example where I dropped in a screenshot of a bug and it span up custom CORS Python servers and used pyobjc-framework-Quartz to capture screenshots https://simonwillison.net/2026/Jun/11/fable-is-relentlessly-proactive/

afaict the thing i'm doing is creating a sandbox for an agent, and Fable is probably hypothesizing about how to break the sandbox it created which, that's *secure* behavior. uuuuugh! support.claude.com/en/articles/...

Blogged about the time I doubled our users by doing proper engineering instead of React slop

https://www.mohkohn.co.uk/writing/html-first/

Ok, I have a 2048x3072 pixel video that shows the differences in training dynamics between Muon and AdamW, and they are fascinating to watch. Where can I upload/share such a video without it getting compressed to shreds?

A black leather jacket may be Jensen Huang’s signature look, but it’s hard to keep up appearances in sweltering heat.

who called it “losing your virginity” instead of “initial pubic offering”?!!

I may have finally found the Python-in-a-sandbox solution I've been looking for... here's my latest experiment, this time running MicroPython in WebAssembly inside my Python applications https://simonwillison.net/2026/Jun/6/micropython-in-a-sandbox/

i’ve noticed that Ai2 has shifted most of its press releases into public benefit point solutions, like OlmoEarth it’s all good stuff, but i imagine it’s a bit underwhelming for researchers like @natolambert.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy who were trying to push the SOTA of American open weights AI

Francesca Albanese is trying to stop a genocide.
The United States and Israel are trying to stop her – by destroying her life, her career, her family, and her voice.
The US has sanctioned UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, 8 ICC judges, 3 court officials, and Palestinian human rights organisations Al-Haq, Al Mezan, and PCHR. The message is chilling: investigate genocide, speak up for international law, and we will destroy your life.

https://petition.qomon.org/0b54a0b8-demand-justice-defend-the-defenders/

#news #gaza #genocide #icc

Our AI development stack is shaping up nicely!

As a base, using any programming language:
* Sandcat to securely run agents, without having to answer tedious questions
* Orca to create deterministic development flows

Then for Scala/Java in particular, we've got:
* Metals MCP to avoid bash round-trip when compiling/testing/browsing code
* Cellar to fetch metadata of external dependencies
* Scala Skill to steer the agents towards producing maintainable, concise FP code