Live data from Hacker News

2025: The Year in LLMs

simonwillison.net

391–400 of 643 posts

Re: 2025: The Year in LLMs

#391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hang on, you're now saying that if something has ever been described in fiction it doesn't count as invention? So if somebody literally developed a working photon torpedo, that isn't new because "Star Trek Did It"?

You seem to be pretty far down the rabbit hole. How about this... You task an LLM to create a photon torpedo. If it can truly think then it should be able to provide you with something tangible. When you've got that in hand let us all know. Back to the land of reality... Describing something in fiction doesn’t magically make it "not an invention". Fiction can anticipate an idea, but invention is about producing a wor…

I didn't say anything about an LLM. I said "somebody" not "some predictive text engine."

Re: 2025: The Year in LLMs

#392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2025 was the year of development tool using AI agents. I think we'll shift attention to non development tool using AI agents. Most business users are still stuck using chat gpt as some kind of grand oracle that will write their email or powerpoint slides. There are bits and pieces of mostly technology demo level solutions but nothing that is widely used like AI coding tools are so far. I don't think this is bottle ne…

> Some examples of random crap I deal with: figuring out contracts, their meaning/implication to situations, and deciding on a course of action This doesn’t sound like bullshit you should hand off to an AI. It sounds like stuff you would care about.

I do care about it; kind of my duty as a co-founder. Which is why I'm spending double digit percentages of my time doing this stuff. But I absolutely could use some tools to cut down on a lot of the drudgery that is involved with this. And me reading through 40 pages of dense legal German isn't one of my strengths since I 1) do not speak German 2) am not a lawyer and 3) am not necessarily deeply familiar with all the bureaucracy, laws, etc.

But I can ask intelligent questions about that contract from an LLM (in English) and shoot back and forth a few things, come up with some kind of action plan, and then run it by our laywers and other advisors.

That's not some kind of hypothetical thing. That's something that happened multiple times in our company in the last few months. LLMs are very empowering for dealing with this sort of thing. You still need experts for some stuff. But you can do a lot more yourself now. And as we've found out, some of the "experts" that we relied on in the past actually did a pretty shoddy job. A lot of this stuff was about picking apart the mess they made and fixing it.

As soon as you start drafting contracts, it gets a lot harder. I just went through a process like that as well. It involves a lot of manual work that is basically about formatting documents, drafting text, running pdfs and text snippets through chat gpt for feedback, sparring, criticism, etc. and iterating on that. This is not about vibe coding some contract but making sure every letter of a contract is right. That ultimately involves lawyers and negotiating with other stakeholders but it helps if you come prepared with a more or less ready to sign off on document.

It's not about handing stuff off but about making LLMs work for you. Just like with coding tools. I care about code quality as well. But I still use the tools to save me a lot of time.

Re: 2025: The Year in LLMs

#393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously, all that familiarity and you think an LLM "literally" can't invent anything that didn't already exist? Like, I'm sorry, but you're just flat-out wrong and I've got the proof sitting on my hard drive. I use this supposedly impossible program daily.

Do you also think LLMs "think"? From what you've described an LLM has not invented anything. LLMs that can reason have a bit more slight of hand but they're not coming up with new ideas outside of the bounds of what a lot of words have encompassed in both fiction and non. Good for you that you've got a fun token of code that's what you've always wanted, I guess. But this type of fantasy take on LLMs seems to be more…

[dead]

Re: 2025: The Year in LLMs

#394
post #228

All these improvement in a single year, 2025. While this may seem obvious to those who follows along the AI / LLM news. It may be worth pointing out again ChatGPT was introduced to us in November 2022. I still dont believe AGI, ASI or Whatever AI will take over human in short period of time say 10 - 20 years. But it is hard to argue against the value of current AI, which many of the vocal critics on HN seems to have…

2025 was the year of development tool using AI agents. I think we'll shift attention to non development tool using AI agents. Most business users are still stuck using chat gpt as some kind of grand oracle that will write their email or powerpoint slides. There are bits and pieces of mostly technology demo level solutions but nothing that is widely used like AI coding tools are so far. I don't think this is bottle ne…

`Also most tools are completely useless at modifying structured documents`

we built a tool for this for the life science space and are opening it up to the general public very soon. Email me I can give you access (topaz at vespper dot com)

Re: 2025: The Year in LLMs

#395
With everything that we have done so far (our company) I believe by end of 2026 our software will be self improving all the time.

And no it is not AI slop and we don't vibe code. There are a lot of practical aspects of running software and maintaining / improving code that can be done well with AI if you have the right setup. It is hard to formulate what "right" looks like at this stage as we are still iterating on this as well.

However, in our own experiments we can clearly see dramatic increases in automation. I mean we have agents working overnight as we sleep and this is not even pushing the limits. We are now wrapping major changes that will allows us to run AI agents all the time as long as we can afford them.

I can even see most of these materialising in Q1 2026.

Fun times.

Re: 2025: The Year in LLMs

#396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if these provide actual value through placebo-effect?

I think we have different definitions of "actual value". But even if I pick the flaccid definition, that isn't proof of value of the thing itself, but of any placebo. In which case we can focus on the cheapest/least harmful placebo. Or, better, solving the underlying problem that the placebo "helps".

I'll preface by saying I fully agree that psychics aren't providing any non-placebo value to believers, although I think it's fine to provide entertainment for non-believers.

> Or, better, solving the underlying problem that the placebo "helps".

The underlying problems are often a lack of a decent education and a generally difficult/unsatisfying life. Systemic issues which can't be meaningfully "solved" without massive resources and political will.

Re: 2025: The Year in LLMs

#397
post #395

With everything that we have done so far (our company) I believe by end of 2026 our software will be self improving all the time. And no it is not AI slop and we don't vibe code. There are a lot of practical aspects of running software and maintaining / improving code that can be done well with AI if you have the right setup. It is hard to formulate what "right" looks like at this stage as we are still iterating on t…

What exactly are your agents doing overnight? I often hear folks talk about their agents running for long periods of time but rarely talk about the outcomes they're driving from those agents.

Re: 2025: The Year in LLMs

#398
post #228

All these improvement in a single year, 2025. While this may seem obvious to those who follows along the AI / LLM news. It may be worth pointing out again ChatGPT was introduced to us in November 2022. I still dont believe AGI, ASI or Whatever AI will take over human in short period of time say 10 - 20 years. But it is hard to argue against the value of current AI, which many of the vocal critics on HN seems to have…

> People are willing to pay $200 per month

Some people are of course, but how many?

> ... People are willing to pay $200 per month

This is just low-key hype. Careful with your portfolio...

Re: 2025: The Year in LLMs

#399
post #273

Re: yolo mode I looked into docker and then realized the problem I'm actually trying to solve was solved in like 1970 with users and permissions. I just made a agent user limited to its own home folder, and added my user to its group. Then I run Claude code etc as the agent user. So it can only read write /home/agent, and it cannot read or write my files. I add myself to agent group so I can read/write the agent file…

cgroups and namespaces

Re: 2025: The Year in LLMs

#400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some examples of random crap I deal with: figuring out contracts, their meaning/implication to situations, and deciding on a course of action This doesn’t sound like bullshit you should hand off to an AI. It sounds like stuff you would care about.

I do care about it; kind of my duty as a co-founder. Which is why I'm spending double digit percentages of my time doing this stuff. But I absolutely could use some tools to cut down on a lot of the drudgery that is involved with this. And me reading through 40 pages of dense legal German isn't one of my strengths since I 1) do not speak German 2) am not a lawyer and 3) am not necessarily deeply familiar with all the…

One of the lessons I learned running a startup is that it doesn't matter how good the professionals you hire are for things like legal and accounting, you still need to put work in yourself.

Everyone makes mistakes and misses things, and as the co-founder you have to care more about the details than anyone else does.

I would have loved to have weird-unreliable-paralegal-Claude available back when I was doing that!

Post reply on HN