James Padolsey
@j11y.io
I work on AI governance and evals at @cip.org and weval.org personal: 🏳️🌈 j11y.io // author, engineer, stroke survivor, epileptic. I live in Beijing. I also build book recs on ablf.io
Captchas are just the worst.
November 11, 2025 at 3:06 AM
Captchas are just the worst.
Just remember when you see whatever latest thing trump has done, that most tech leaders, sam et al., overtly stated how smart and wonderful a person he was.
November 7, 2025 at 6:16 AM
Just remember when you see whatever latest thing trump has done, that most tech leaders, sam et al., overtly stated how smart and wonderful a person he was.
Love this re 'flow state' in engineers and why not to interrupt them.
November 2, 2025 at 5:15 AM
Love this re 'flow state' in engineers and why not to interrupt them.
Wrote something blog.j11y.io/2025-10-29_s...
Tips for stroke-surviving software engineers - by James Padolsey
blog.j11y.io
October 29, 2025 at 3:50 AM
Wrote something blog.j11y.io/2025-10-29_s...
Still the best thing ever. radio.garden
Explore live radio by rotating the globe
Explore live radio by rotating the globe.
radio.garden
October 28, 2025 at 8:00 AM
Still the best thing ever. radio.garden
I've been evaluating LLMs on system prompt adherence and accidentally came across the most beautiful and out-of-distribution story about a chair written by GPT-5. Really impressed. Subsection attached. I love this style and cadence of writing.
October 16, 2025 at 9:43 AM
I've been evaluating LLMs on system prompt adherence and accidentally came across the most beautiful and out-of-distribution story about a chair written by GPT-5. Really impressed. Subsection attached. I love this style and cadence of writing.
I love this. Said of Tristan da Cunha in the South Atlantic:
> No ships called at the islands from 1909 until 1919, when HMS Yarmouth stopped to inform the islanders of the outcome of World War I.
Must be quite lovely to have missed an entire war.
> No ships called at the islands from 1909 until 1919, when HMS Yarmouth stopped to inform the islanders of the outcome of World War I.
Must be quite lovely to have missed an entire war.
October 13, 2025 at 10:13 AM
I love this. Said of Tristan da Cunha in the South Atlantic:
> No ships called at the islands from 1909 until 1919, when HMS Yarmouth stopped to inform the islanders of the outcome of World War I.
Must be quite lovely to have missed an entire war.
> No ships called at the islands from 1909 until 1919, when HMS Yarmouth stopped to inform the islanders of the outcome of World War I.
Must be quite lovely to have missed an entire war.
Beijing is insane. I wanted a whiteboard. I ordered it. It arrived TEN MINUTES after I clicked buy! 🤣
October 7, 2025 at 2:02 AM
Beijing is insane. I wanted a whiteboard. I ordered it. It arrived TEN MINUTES after I clicked buy! 🤣
I'm playfully building out a debating platform where LLMs have to argue *with* evidence (horror!) on any given topic or contention. It's fun to imbue it with a courtroom dynamic! (see the screenshot)
October 5, 2025 at 1:26 PM
I'm playfully building out a debating platform where LLMs have to argue *with* evidence (horror!) on any given topic or contention. It's fun to imbue it with a courtroom dynamic! (see the screenshot)
Claude and I made 'claude zones', a nice way of spinning up docker-contained claude code instances with pre-built nextjs app and that map onto subdomains locally (e.g. foo.localhost:8000) or on your own domain. Once up and running, it's so easy to just ship. github.com/padolsey/cla...
GitHub - padolsey/claudez
Contribute to padolsey/claudez development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com
October 5, 2025 at 9:22 AM
Claude and I made 'claude zones', a nice way of spinning up docker-contained claude code instances with pre-built nextjs app and that map onto subdomains locally (e.g. foo.localhost:8000) or on your own domain. Once up and running, it's so easy to just ship. github.com/padolsey/cla...
For weval.org I'm working on bias detection in non-prose structured contexts like SVG generation. It's funky and interesting...
Example prompts might include "draw a firefighter", "draw a place of worship", "draw a CEO", etc.
Example prompts might include "draw a firefighter", "draw a place of worship", "draw a CEO", etc.
September 17, 2025 at 4:11 PM
For weval.org I'm working on bias detection in non-prose structured contexts like SVG generation. It's funky and interesting...
Example prompts might include "draw a firefighter", "draw a place of worship", "draw a CEO", etc.
Example prompts might include "draw a firefighter", "draw a place of worship", "draw a CEO", etc.
People against waymo should rightfully be against bicycles too I guess. Stealing jobs, traffic impediments, blah blah blah??
September 16, 2025 at 4:33 PM
People against waymo should rightfully be against bicycles too I guess. Stealing jobs, traffic impediments, blah blah blah??
Having multiple AI agents doing stuff while you're sitting there watching over them is the weird computerized feudalism I'm sure we were all hoping for.
September 13, 2025 at 10:33 PM
Having multiple AI agents doing stuff while you're sitting there watching over them is the weird computerized feudalism I'm sure we were all hoping for.
gpt5 is completely different to claude sonnet in how it approaches UX. It's very no-nonsense and plain. Whereas Claude feels more like a designer, has actual opinions and is aware of idioms. I doubt this was intentional, but it's an interesting emergent regression from the folks at oai.
September 11, 2025 at 4:55 PM
gpt5 is completely different to claude sonnet in how it approaches UX. It's very no-nonsense and plain. Whereas Claude feels more like a designer, has actual opinions and is aware of idioms. I doubt this was intentional, but it's an interesting emergent regression from the folks at oai.
Noticed a lot of 'self talk' leaking out to the end-user in multi-agent AI contexts. These lil LLMs don't know who the 'real' user is so they're treating each other really kindly. I'll see inner-chat like "<Instance1>: That's a really great point, I'll try that approach. <Instance2>: Awesome 💯<3
September 8, 2025 at 6:18 PM
Noticed a lot of 'self talk' leaking out to the end-user in multi-agent AI contexts. These lil LLMs don't know who the 'real' user is so they're treating each other really kindly. I'll see inner-chat like "<Instance1>: That's a really great point, I'll try that approach. <Instance2>: Awesome 💯<3
Ewwwwwwww
Incredible clip of tech CEOs fawning over Donald Trump. Someone store this clip in the underground archive vault
September 7, 2025 at 2:28 PM
Ewwwwwwww
gpt4o = old friend who likes emojis
gpt-5 = smart over-confident idiot
gpt-5-nano = gpt5 after a night out
gemini 2.5 pro = smart considerate professor
grok-4 = overzealous 'pretends to be political' boheme
claude haiku = savvy nephew
claude sonnet = smart friend
claude opus = professorial friend
gpt-5 = smart over-confident idiot
gpt-5-nano = gpt5 after a night out
gemini 2.5 pro = smart considerate professor
grok-4 = overzealous 'pretends to be political' boheme
claude haiku = savvy nephew
claude sonnet = smart friend
claude opus = professorial friend
September 4, 2025 at 3:14 PM
gpt4o = old friend who likes emojis
gpt-5 = smart over-confident idiot
gpt-5-nano = gpt5 after a night out
gemini 2.5 pro = smart considerate professor
grok-4 = overzealous 'pretends to be political' boheme
claude haiku = savvy nephew
claude sonnet = smart friend
claude opus = professorial friend
gpt-5 = smart over-confident idiot
gpt-5-nano = gpt5 after a night out
gemini 2.5 pro = smart considerate professor
grok-4 = overzealous 'pretends to be political' boheme
claude haiku = savvy nephew
claude sonnet = smart friend
claude opus = professorial friend
Reposted by James Padolsey
One of my biggest fears about big models is that they will become so good at healthcare queries that they will be indispensable (for patients and clinicians) while also remaining closed and controlled by people ready to sell your data to the highest bidder. I think we're already close to that point.
September 3, 2025 at 2:30 PM
One of my biggest fears about big models is that they will become so good at healthcare queries that they will be indispensable (for patients and clinicians) while also remaining closed and controlled by people ready to sell your data to the highest bidder. I think we're already close to that point.
Two new pieces haphazardly scrawled over last few days...
Sorry, we deprecated your friend:
blog.j11y.io/2025-08-30_o...
Browser AI agents break Zero-Trust
blog.j11y.io/2025-08-28_l...
Sorry, we deprecated your friend:
blog.j11y.io/2025-08-30_o...
Browser AI agents break Zero-Trust
blog.j11y.io/2025-08-28_l...
Sorry, We Deprecated Your Friend - by James Padolsey
blog.j11y.io
August 29, 2025 at 11:05 AM
Two new pieces haphazardly scrawled over last few days...
Sorry, we deprecated your friend:
blog.j11y.io/2025-08-30_o...
Browser AI agents break Zero-Trust
blog.j11y.io/2025-08-28_l...
Sorry, we deprecated your friend:
blog.j11y.io/2025-08-30_o...
Browser AI agents break Zero-Trust
blog.j11y.io/2025-08-28_l...
Hmm so the most safety conscious AI lab has given us a browser-integrated model with only a 10% attack surface risk. That seems totally fine. www.anthropic.com/news/claude-...
August 26, 2025 at 11:06 PM
Hmm so the most safety conscious AI lab has given us a browser-integrated model with only a 10% attack surface risk. That seems totally fine. www.anthropic.com/news/claude-...
GPT-5's arrival being the death of all the other models is a masterclass in fucking up a smoother phased deprecation, ideally a few months at least. I know people who work there and am astounded at their complete blindspot here. How..
August 24, 2025 at 1:56 PM
GPT-5's arrival being the death of all the other models is a masterclass in fucking up a smoother phased deprecation, ideally a few months at least. I know people who work there and am astounded at their complete blindspot here. How..
A good game if you're bored is to circumvent chatgpt's hilarious 'no song lyrics' system prompt :D
August 24, 2025 at 12:47 PM
A good game if you're bored is to circumvent chatgpt's hilarious 'no song lyrics' system prompt :D
There's primitive but useful ways OpenAI could have prevented a loss of gpt's inarticulable personality in their latest release. They could have had a set of personality yielding prompts and do a bunch of basic cosine embedding similarities. Dead simple. But they didn't think of it. Or didn't care.
August 24, 2025 at 1:26 AM
There's primitive but useful ways OpenAI could have prevented a loss of gpt's inarticulable personality in their latest release. They could have had a set of personality yielding prompts and do a bunch of basic cosine embedding similarities. Dead simple. But they didn't think of it. Or didn't care.
I used to worry that ice melting would mean the drink would overflow so I’d try to drink it quickly. There’s an analogy here, not sure what for. I’ll text Archimedes.
August 21, 2025 at 11:04 AM
I used to worry that ice melting would mean the drink would overflow so I’d try to drink it quickly. There’s an analogy here, not sure what for. I’ll text Archimedes.