Tom
erispoe.bsky.social
Tom
@erispoe.bsky.social
The kids are alright.
I'm not sure *how* it happened, but I encounter a lot of undergrads proposing remarkably thoughtful and well-informed indep. study distant-reading projects. It's not like those methods got incorporated in the curriculum! But students are somehow self-educating—possibly with LLM assistance?
December 26, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Reposted by Tom
i wonder if "poisoning the ai" has ever worked at all or if it's one of those folk wisdom things like use this ointment to scare the copyright infringement demons
December 24, 2025 at 3:57 AM
Reposted by Tom
For You nearing 20k likes is so well deserved, you love to see it
December 26, 2025 at 12:48 AM
Reposted by Tom
I built a new Python CLI tool called claude-code-transcripts that can create nice readable HTML versions of your Claude Code sessions, both local and pulled from Claude Code for web, and makes it easy to publish them online too simonwillison.net/2025/Dec/25/...
A new way to extract detailed transcripts from Claude Code
I’ve released claude-code-transcripts, a new Python CLI tool for converting Claude Code transcripts to detailed HTML pages that provide a better interface for understanding what Claude Code has done t...
simonwillison.net
December 25, 2025 at 11:53 PM
Reposted by Tom
Fwiw I think this is actually backwards. My experience with LLMs has been that they are actually*incredibly* good at precisely this thing, and that this may in fact be one of their most beneficial aspects.
Not a historian but like to research. The AI might summarize what I'm looking for, but it doesn't find what I'm *not* looking for. The book on the shelf next to the one I wanted. The insight in chapter 6 based on the quote I needed from chapter 4.
December 25, 2025 at 4:33 PM
Reposted by Tom
If you want to know more about why California resisted building housing (spoiler: racism) and why it's finally starting to, you should read this piece by @jetjocko.bsky.social www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
Scott Wiener defeated California’s NIMBYs. Can he fix America’s housing crisis?
By running for Nancy Pelosi's House seat, he's putting the abundance theory to the test.
www.motherjones.com
December 24, 2025 at 1:20 AM
Reposted by Tom
Every time I see the mac System Information icon all my brain thinks is: Onigiri
December 22, 2025 at 8:29 PM
Reposted by Tom
The fun thing about the AI as dotcom crash metaphor is that it's bullish for AI. While companies like Webvan, Kozmo & Pets. com failed - today we have Amazon, DoorDash & Chewy.

We also have Netflix, TikTok, Uber and lots of other companies we couldn’t have imagined in 2001.

AI will be similar.
December 23, 2025 at 1:24 AM
Reposted by Tom
I wrote about how I've been having a ton of fun cooking with LLMs recently - including having Claude take a photo of two recipe cards and vibe-code me up a custom timer application to help me prepare two meals at once simonwillison.net/2025/Dec/23/...
Cooking with Claude
I’ve been having an absurd amount of fun recently using LLMs for cooking. I started out using them for basic recipes, but as I’ve grown more confident in their culinary …
simonwillison.net
December 23, 2025 at 5:03 AM
Remember the dotcom bubble and what happened to the internet after that? The AI bubble may well pop in 2026 but if you expect that it will bring the end of AI you’re gonna be sorely disappointed.
December 22, 2025 at 5:01 PM
Reposted by Tom
To be sure there’s real debate about whether GenAI is worth the cost (in the academic lit see Humlum and Vestergaard 2025), but it’s quite sad that more people don’t have the same doubts regarding cattle “farming.”
speculative promises about what AI could maybe possibly be used for don't match up with reality, and drawing contrasts to how much water humans take to live, or to raise cattle, or to manufacture a t-shirt, are all wildly different from the question of AI facilities and their eminent impacts
December 13, 2025 at 1:48 AM
Reposted by Tom
endlessly interesting to me that people think this first claim is true. why? I tend to think it’s mostly because RLHF’ed outputs with weak prompting are generic
AI will only go down the paths most traveled, which is what lawyers pressing courts toward new ways of seeing must transcend. AND the only way to diverge from the old paths is to become intimately familiar with them - to gather the source materials with which the brain does its unique alchemy.
December 21, 2025 at 10:04 PM
According to NASA, leopard print is evidence there could once have been life in New Jersey.
September 22, 2025 at 10:01 AM
Garlic NaN
August 27, 2025 at 6:36 AM