FeedCity

Open letters about AI development I wrote this summary of the past few weeks of open letters as a section of my sponsors-only newsletter but I've decided to share it here as well. Open Weights and American AI Leadership was shepherded by Microsoft, dated July 24th, and signe...

The June edition of my sponsors-only monthly newsletter is out. If you are a sponsor (or if you start a sponsorship now) you can access it here.

This month:

• Accidental cyberattacks by OpenAl and Anthropic models under test
• GPT-5.6 Sol, Terra, and Luna
• Claude Opus 5
• Kimi K3 and DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731
• Open letters about Al development
• A fireside chat and a podcast
• Reigniting my interest in MCP
• Other model releases
• My projects
• What I'm using at the moment

Here's a copy of the June newsletter as a preview of what you'll get. Pay $10/month to stay a month ahead of the free copy!

Tags: newsletter

at openai, many people hook their chatgpt up to slack.

people really don't like when a coworker's chatgpt contacts them asking for help with a task, even when they'd be perfectly happy doing that same work if asked by that coworker.

reinforces how much people care about human relationships and helping each other, and want AI to give time back — or enhance time together — rather than become a layer separating people.

— Greg Brockman, President and Co-Founder, OpenAI

Tags: ai-ethics, ai-misuse, generative-ai, openai, ai, llms

Release: datasette-apps 0.2a0

Changes that improve Datasette Apps when created and edited using Datasette Agent:

• New app_debug() tool allowing agent to open an app (invisibly) and test it using JavaScript. #33
• New app_list() tool for listing apps the user has permission to edit, so the agent can edit them. #36

The app_debug() tool is pretty neat: it works by displaying the app in a opacity: 0 iframe with pointer-events: none (so it can't be seen or interacted with) and then executing agent-provided JavaScript inside that sandboxed iframe. This means the agent can smoke test that the app is working and even do things like measure the dimensions of different elements.

This uses the new context.browser_task() mechanism added in datasette-agent 0.4a0.

Tags: iframes, datasette, datasette-apps

Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science A few days ago it was Anthropic discovering cryptographic weaknesses with Claude using Mythos Preview, spending $100,000 on tokens and with prompts that included "again we are not looking for low hanging fruit, we ...

Release: llm-mcp-client 0.1a0

See this blog entry.

Tags: llm, model-context-protocol

Tool: Slack Emoji Maker

I wanted to create a new Slack emoji, and their tool recommends a square that's 128x128 and has a transparent background... so I had Fable build me this simple image editor against those requirements.

Tags: tools, slack

Release: datasette-agent 0.4a0

• New await context.browser_task() mechanism allowing agent tools to run code directly in the user's browser. #33

This is an exciting new capability: it makes it easy for Datasette Agent plugins to provide tools that execute custom JavaScript in the user's browser.

Tags: datasette, llm-tool-use, datasette-agent

Michael Lopp, at Rands in Repose: I have felt since it was announced that the Apple iPhone Upgrade Program has not just been a deal, but a steal. The specifics: You apply for a loan for a full-price iPhone at 0%. If approved, your payments are split over 24 months. Pay...

Jason Snell: On Thursday, Apple announced record third-quarter earnings, with total revenue of $109.4B, up 16 percent from the year-ago quarter. iPhone revenue was up 22%, Mac revenue was up 10.4%, Services revenue was up 12%, and Wearables revenue was up 6%. iPad revenu...

Full video on my channel!

Thanks to eufyMake for sponsoring this video! Check out the eufyMake E1 for 3D texture and multi-material printing: https://eufymake.io/SuFhUz

Coupon codes for 3 tiers:

simonegiertz1 USD$2200-50
simonegiertz1 USD$2600-100
simonegiertz3 USD$3000-200

🛒 Shop Yetch Studio: https://yetch.studio/

📱 Follow me:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/simonegiertz/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@simonegiertz

The sets, the clothes, the makeup, the props - it’s all a little goofy and overdone. And I think this fits the film perfectly. Because it’s not taking itself too seriously. It’s a great Akschn Fuim and simply entertaining from start to finish in all its 80s glory. No shit!

👍 Recommended!

This is a really easy phone to fall in love with. Beware. Enter to win $100,000 USD or 3 cars for free at https://ridge.com/MKBHD (Affiliate Link) Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8: https://geni.us/GEv50B MKBHD Merch: http://shop.MKBHD.com Playlist of MKBHD Intro music: https://g...

deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731 The latest release in DeepSeek's V4 family, "with substantially enhanced agentic capabilities". It's 304 billion parameters - 167GB on Hugging Face - but it appears to punch well above its weight. Artificial Analysis rank it ahead of MiniMa...

Tuesday was Stateless MCP day - the rollout of MCP 2.0, or the 2026-07-28 Model Context Protocol specification to use the more formal but less memorable name. This is the most significant change to the MCP spec since it first launched, and has also served to reignite my pers...

Louie Mantia returns to the show to talk about the state of UI and icon design on Apple’s platforms, and some speculation on Apple’s trade secret lawsuit against OpenAI.

Sponsored by:

• Notion: The collaborative AI workspace where teams and agents work side by side, with a Developer Platform teams can build on.
• Even Realities: Even G2, the everyday display smart glasses. Use promo code talkshow to save 10% off the R1 Ring and/or Even Clip.
• Squarespace: Save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code TALKSHOW.

Link: daringfireball.net/thetalkshow/2026/07/31/ep-453

Oxide and Friends: The Open Weight Revolution with Simon Willison On Monday Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal invited me to join their podcast to talk about the wild week we've had - with Kimi K3 showing open weight models can stand toe-to-toe with proprietary frontier ones,...

smevals - a small eval suite for evaluating models, prompts, and harnesses I've been working with Jesse Vincent's Prime Radiant applied AI research lab building out this evals framework to help answer questions about the capabilities of different models. The result is smeval...