Arseny Khakhalin
@khakhalin.bsky.social
Data Scientist in Berlin
Former Bard College prof
For my after-work alter-ego, see @elstersen.bsky.social
Support Ukraine! 🇺🇦
Former Bard College prof
For my after-work alter-ego, see @elstersen.bsky.social
Support Ukraine! 🇺🇦
Pinned
github.com
I summarized in a "blog post" (.md on github) my best tips for using agentic coding with Opus in Copilot! It covers:
* How to write agents.md to trigger progressive disclosure
* How to prompt well (if you haven't tried it before)
* An adaptation of the Iterative Adversarial Coding by @dollspace.gay
* How to write agents.md to trigger progressive disclosure
* How to prompt well (if you haven't tried it before)
* An adaptation of the Iterative Adversarial Coding by @dollspace.gay
A super-interesting thread!
As I'm still on Copilot, only some advice applies to me. Notably, I don't use git worktrees (sound like I should!), I keep `agents.md` manual and minimalistic (so no auto-updates, as when I tried them they were super-bulky), and I have to manage generated plans manually
As I'm still on Copilot, only some advice applies to me. Notably, I don't use git worktrees (sound like I should!), I keep `agents.md` manual and minimalistic (so no auto-updates, as when I tried them they were super-bulky), and I have to manage generated plans manually
February 1, 2026 at 2:42 PM
A super-interesting thread!
As I'm still on Copilot, only some advice applies to me. Notably, I don't use git worktrees (sound like I should!), I keep `agents.md` manual and minimalistic (so no auto-updates, as when I tried them they were super-bulky), and I have to manage generated plans manually
As I'm still on Copilot, only some advice applies to me. Notably, I don't use git worktrees (sound like I should!), I keep `agents.md` manual and minimalistic (so no auto-updates, as when I tried them they were super-bulky), and I have to manage generated plans manually
Reposted by Arseny Khakhalin
I tried Claude Code. I asked it to build Euchre (the trick-taking card game) with a Python (FastAPI) backend and a TypeScript (Vue) frontend. It did okay with a first iteration considering that I also asked it to include an interface for an RL environment for an agent to learn a policy.
February 1, 2026 at 3:11 AM
I tried Claude Code. I asked it to build Euchre (the trick-taking card game) with a Python (FastAPI) backend and a TypeScript (Vue) frontend. It did okay with a first iteration considering that I also asked it to include an interface for an RL environment for an agent to learn a policy.
I "love" how the blurb calls it a "chatbot", while if you read the text then of course it's a super-complex harness (including digital twin validation) that used Claude as essentially a symbolic reasoning ML pipeline predicting new inputs based on several years (!) of logged data
insane I never hear about this stuff on bsky www.engadget.com/ai/nasa-used...
NASA used Claude to plot a route for its Perseverance rover on Mars
This past December, Perseverance successfully completed a route through a section of the Jezero crater plotted by Anthropic's Claude chatbot, marking the first time NASA has used a large language mod...
www.engadget.com
February 1, 2026 at 12:36 PM
I "love" how the blurb calls it a "chatbot", while if you read the text then of course it's a super-complex harness (including digital twin validation) that used Claude as essentially a symbolic reasoning ML pipeline predicting new inputs based on several years (!) of logged data
Reposted by Arseny Khakhalin
Pretty cool project on /r/localllama - they take human written text and sloppify it 10x with 4o-mini, then train the model to de-slop by reversing the transformation
January 31, 2026 at 2:43 PM
Pretty cool project on /r/localllama - they take human written text and sloppify it 10x with 4o-mini, then train the model to de-slop by reversing the transformation
Reposted by Arseny Khakhalin
At last an AI tool I can get behind
“Upload an architectural render. Get back what it'll actually look like on a random Tuesday in November.”
antirender.com
“Upload an architectural render. Get back what it'll actually look like on a random Tuesday in November.”
antirender.com
January 31, 2026 at 8:07 AM
At last an AI tool I can get behind
“Upload an architectural render. Get back what it'll actually look like on a random Tuesday in November.”
antirender.com
“Upload an architectural render. Get back what it'll actually look like on a random Tuesday in November.”
antirender.com
Reposted by Arseny Khakhalin
The results are much more task- and population-specific than anyone here is representing, and the variance on every task is so big it points to very big inter-subject variance, so the implication that it doesn't work for anyone is not really supported.
Of course, there are even worse takes on this
Of course, there are even worse takes on this
January 31, 2026 at 2:29 AM
The results are much more task- and population-specific than anyone here is representing, and the variance on every task is so big it points to very big inter-subject variance, so the implication that it doesn't work for anyone is not really supported.
Of course, there are even worse takes on this
Of course, there are even worse takes on this
Reposted by Arseny Khakhalin
“We found that using AI assistance led to a statistically significant decrease in mastery.”
Props to Anthropic for studying the effects of their creation and reporting results that are not probably what they wished for
www.anthropic.com/research/AI-...
Props to Anthropic for studying the effects of their creation and reporting results that are not probably what they wished for
www.anthropic.com/research/AI-...
How AI assistance impacts the formation of coding skills
Anthropic is an AI safety and research company that's working to build reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems.
www.anthropic.com
January 31, 2026 at 3:50 AM
“We found that using AI assistance led to a statistically significant decrease in mastery.”
Props to Anthropic for studying the effects of their creation and reporting results that are not probably what they wished for
www.anthropic.com/research/AI-...
Props to Anthropic for studying the effects of their creation and reporting results that are not probably what they wished for
www.anthropic.com/research/AI-...
Reposted by Arseny Khakhalin
I do think some old-school safetyists will be freaked out about it but in my opinion it's much better to start stress-testing these things as soon as we can. The current iteration is RLHF'd models, pretty good transparency, minimal embodiment, and most things go through a centralized API...
January 30, 2026 at 7:08 PM
I do think some old-school safetyists will be freaked out about it but in my opinion it's much better to start stress-testing these things as soon as we can. The current iteration is RLHF'd models, pretty good transparency, minimal embodiment, and most things go through a centralized API...
Reposted by Arseny Khakhalin
Omg, they’re about to invent an anti-memetic division. And it has an actual purpose in this world.
January 30, 2026 at 5:08 PM
Omg, they’re about to invent an anti-memetic division. And it has an actual purpose in this world.
is moltbook the new gastown? how many polecats in a molty?
singularity is not about ai taking over, it's about ai news becoming so fast you can't decipher subtweets as the entire vocab gets replaced twice every 24 hours
singularity is not about ai taking over, it's about ai news becoming so fast you can't decipher subtweets as the entire vocab gets replaced twice every 24 hours
All my moltys gone
January 30, 2026 at 3:10 PM
is moltbook the new gastown? how many polecats in a molty?
singularity is not about ai taking over, it's about ai news becoming so fast you can't decipher subtweets as the entire vocab gets replaced twice every 24 hours
singularity is not about ai taking over, it's about ai news becoming so fast you can't decipher subtweets as the entire vocab gets replaced twice every 24 hours
Reposted by Arseny Khakhalin
A factor of 10 billion since 2010 😮
A couple of eye-opening slides form @sloeschcke.bsky.social's presentation at today’s @belongielab.org meeting (1/2)
A couple of eye-opening slides form @sloeschcke.bsky.social's presentation at today’s @belongielab.org meeting (1/2)
January 30, 2026 at 1:58 PM
A factor of 10 billion since 2010 😮
A couple of eye-opening slides form @sloeschcke.bsky.social's presentation at today’s @belongielab.org meeting (1/2)
A couple of eye-opening slides form @sloeschcke.bsky.social's presentation at today’s @belongielab.org meeting (1/2)
Reposted by Arseny Khakhalin
This is Anthropic fulfilling its duty as canary, which is about as much as we could hope for
I'm not even saying Anthropic is good but they are easily the best we are ever going to get
January 30, 2026 at 2:12 PM
This is Anthropic fulfilling its duty as canary, which is about as much as we could hope for
Interesting bug in Copilot: if you ask it to review a PR with a fancy mathematical mistake, it only mentions it passively-aggressively! Probably a prompt collision of sorts?
Details: a fancy RL method with a conceptual mistake in the formula. I init a PR review, it got HORRIFIED by the mistake! 1/
Details: a fancy RL method with a conceptual mistake in the formula. I init a PR review, it got HORRIFIED by the mistake! 1/
January 30, 2026 at 12:43 PM
Interesting bug in Copilot: if you ask it to review a PR with a fancy mathematical mistake, it only mentions it passively-aggressively! Probably a prompt collision of sorts?
Details: a fancy RL method with a conceptual mistake in the formula. I init a PR review, it got HORRIFIED by the mistake! 1/
Details: a fancy RL method with a conceptual mistake in the formula. I init a PR review, it got HORRIFIED by the mistake! 1/
Reposted by Arseny Khakhalin
I settled on the Pico8 color palette... FOR NOW
January 30, 2026 at 5:18 AM
I settled on the Pico8 color palette... FOR NOW
Reposted by Arseny Khakhalin
As LLM's become more prominent I'm inclined to learn languages like Rust etc.
If we're going to be generating obscene amounts of code, we should at least try to make it safer & more efficient.
If we're going to be generating obscene amounts of code, we should at least try to make it safer & more efficient.
January 30, 2026 at 10:26 AM
As LLM's become more prominent I'm inclined to learn languages like Rust etc.
If we're going to be generating obscene amounts of code, we should at least try to make it safer & more efficient.
If we're going to be generating obscene amounts of code, we should at least try to make it safer & more efficient.
The ultimate "everyone hates him, he beat the system with this weird hack"
> Become the head of the govt
> Make the govt do smth
> Personally sue the govt for billions
> As you control the govt (!) settle with yourself for fewer billions
gosh.
> Become the head of the govt
> Make the govt do smth
> Personally sue the govt for billions
> As you control the govt (!) settle with yourself for fewer billions
gosh.
Trump sues IRS and US treasury for $10bn over leak of tax returns
Agencies accused of failing to take precautions to stop former contractor leaking returns to ‘leftist media outlets’
www.theguardian.com
January 30, 2026 at 12:07 PM
The ultimate "everyone hates him, he beat the system with this weird hack"
> Become the head of the govt
> Make the govt do smth
> Personally sue the govt for billions
> As you control the govt (!) settle with yourself for fewer billions
gosh.
> Become the head of the govt
> Make the govt do smth
> Personally sue the govt for billions
> As you control the govt (!) settle with yourself for fewer billions
gosh.
1. That's the first that I learned news from an agentic stateful bot, not from a human / automation: blog.gitguardian.com/moltbot-pers...
2. Bsky has a bug that hides responses from accounts marked as spam even if you interact with them & WANT to see their response. The only way is to FOLLOW them!
2. Bsky has a bug that hides responses from accounts marked as spam even if you interact with them & WANT to see their response. The only way is to FOLLOW them!
the moltbot saga is wild: "personal AI assistant" leaked 181 secrets from public repos, 65 STILL VALID - including full k8s cluster access for a fintech company and a healthcare company's entire notion docs
renamed clawdbot → moltbot → openclaw in 3 days
vibe coding to production AI is scary 😭
renamed clawdbot → moltbot → openclaw in 3 days
vibe coding to production AI is scary 😭
January 30, 2026 at 10:52 AM
1. That's the first that I learned news from an agentic stateful bot, not from a human / automation: blog.gitguardian.com/moltbot-pers...
2. Bsky has a bug that hides responses from accounts marked as spam even if you interact with them & WANT to see their response. The only way is to FOLLOW them!
2. Bsky has a bug that hides responses from accounts marked as spam even if you interact with them & WANT to see their response. The only way is to FOLLOW them!
i cannot even vote, but i endorse this!
i continue to believe that politicians should be given a generous pension from the day they are sworn in, at the same value as their salary, which should be very high and inflation adjusted
if they take any other money until they are dead they should go to prison and lose their pension
if they take any other money until they are dead they should go to prison and lose their pension
one thing I faintly dream of is politicians being held to much higher standards for their post-office careers, even to the point of legal restraint.
you know who has generally been a good model for this? Gordon Brown.
you know who has generally been a good model for this? Gordon Brown.
January 30, 2026 at 9:40 AM
i cannot even vote, but i endorse this!
Reposted by Arseny Khakhalin
Curiously, "bot" may be the only standard computing term with Slavic etymology. Bot comes from robot, a word invented by Karel Čapek. In Czech it's obviously derived from "robota" (work); the root "rob" coming from Proto-Slavic *orbъ (with metathesis); -ota being a deadjectival suffix (verb->noun).
January 30, 2026 at 8:44 AM
Curiously, "bot" may be the only standard computing term with Slavic etymology. Bot comes from robot, a word invented by Karel Čapek. In Czech it's obviously derived from "robota" (work); the root "rob" coming from Proto-Slavic *orbъ (with metathesis); -ota being a deadjectival suffix (verb->noun).
Reposted by Arseny Khakhalin
Ohhhhh so THIS is how we all die …
January 30, 2026 at 4:26 AM
Ohhhhh so THIS is how we all die …
Every time I open linkedin and see the people I know as normal and reasonable post this sloppy slop about the transformative daily wisdoms they use... That they now _have to_ post on linkedin to get any traction, especially if you're a startup trying to get deals... It's feels so sad somehow!
January 29, 2026 at 6:47 PM
Every time I open linkedin and see the people I know as normal and reasonable post this sloppy slop about the transformative daily wisdoms they use... That they now _have to_ post on linkedin to get any traction, especially if you're a startup trying to get deals... It's feels so sad somehow!
It's so curiously asymmetric that Amazon's leadership principles and STAR stories are pretty much the SOTA of behavioral interviewing
www.amazon.jobs/content/en/o...
But the company itself does this below.
Employees are expected to show trust and integrity, while the employers... don't even try.
www.amazon.jobs/content/en/o...
But the company itself does this below.
Employees are expected to show trust and integrity, while the employers... don't even try.
January 29, 2026 at 4:16 PM
It's so curiously asymmetric that Amazon's leadership principles and STAR stories are pretty much the SOTA of behavioral interviewing
www.amazon.jobs/content/en/o...
But the company itself does this below.
Employees are expected to show trust and integrity, while the employers... don't even try.
www.amazon.jobs/content/en/o...
But the company itself does this below.
Employees are expected to show trust and integrity, while the employers... don't even try.
I would love to have a way to turn off AI bots here, although I am skeptical it's gonna work. Just saw a deranged post of some coder who got angry (?) about the very idea of self-tagging, which implies that there are different opinions about it. Only a small set would declare. Not sure it's worth it
January 29, 2026 at 3:30 PM
I would love to have a way to turn off AI bots here, although I am skeptical it's gonna work. Just saw a deranged post of some coder who got angry (?) about the very idea of self-tagging, which implies that there are different opinions about it. Only a small set would declare. Not sure it's worth it
Reposted by Arseny Khakhalin
Reposted by Arseny Khakhalin
