The solution might be cancelling my AI subscription
Simon Willison's Weblog2d agoCommentarySimon Willison relates to David Wilson's reflection on launching more than 16 projects with AI tooling. A request for a quick Claude script can expand into an hour-long project without solving the original problem. Coding agents may produce tested, documented solutions rapidly, but people can maintain only so many projects. The critical skill may be discipline: deciding which ideas deserve continued attention.
I Am Retiring from Tech to Live Offline
Simon Willison's Weblog3d agoEthicsSimon Willison highlights Chad Whitacre’s decision to leave tech and Open Source, framed not as a forum threat but as concrete action. Whitacre describes wanting to become “AI Amish” or “Internet Amish,” moving toward an offline, analog life closer to 1980 than 1780. A previous post about using Claude Code with Opus 4.5 shows how agentic AI felt intoxicating and unsettling enough to push him away from technological accelerationism.
Anthropic Series H Valuation Reaches $965B, Backed by Memory Giants★ 78
INSIDE 硬塞 AI4d agoBusinessAnthropic completed a $65 billion Series H round, bringing its valuation to $965 billion and reportedly surpassing OpenAI. The round included strategic investments from memory makers Micron, Samsung, and SK Hynix. The news highlights how frontier AI companies are increasingly tied to hardware and memory supply chains, as investors continue backing foundational model competition.
SYSTEX Uses AWS to Build Enterprise AI Platform EAP
INSIDE 硬塞 AI4d agoBusinessINSIDE reports that SYSTEX is pushing forward with SaaS and enterprise AI despite debate sparked by Claude Code and claims that “SaaS is dead.” The Taiwanese IT services leader reported strong Q1 2026 earnings, with net profit after tax of NT$718 million, up 164.5% year over year. It also introduced EAP, an Enterprise AI Platform built on Amazon Web Services cloud-native architecture to support enterprise AI adoption.
SYSTEX Builds EAP on AWS to Bring Enterprise AI Into Production
INSIDE 硬塞 AI4d agoBusinessINSIDE reports that SYSTEX is positioning its Enterprise AI Platform as a cloud-native route for enterprise generative AI adoption. The article contrasts this with recent “SaaS is dead” discussions sparked by tools such as Claude Code. SYSTEX also reported strong Q1 2026 earnings, with after-tax profit of NT$718 million, up 164.5% year over year.
Anthropic raises $965B Series H, releases Opus 4.8 and Dynamic Workflows/ultracode
Latent Space4d agoBusinessThe visible AINews item centers on Anthropic, claiming a $965B Series H alongside Opus 4.8 and Dynamic Workflows/ultracode releases. The available body text is extremely brief, offering only the editorial line “Total Anthropic victory!” It signals a major Anthropic narrative across capital, Claude models, and developer workflows, but provides no detailed specs, benchmarks, investor terms, or availability information.
Anthropic's run-rate revenue hits $47 billion★ 76
Simon Willison's Weblog4d agoBusinessSimon Willison highlights Anthropic’s latest Series H announcement, where the company says run-rate revenue crossed $47 billion earlier in May. He traces prior disclosures: about $9 billion at the end of 2025, $14 billion in February 2026, and over $30 billion in April. The post also addresses skepticism, arguing that these numbers appeared in fundraising announcements, where knowingly misleading investors would be securities fraud.
Trump loses more control over AI regulation as Illinois passes landmark law★ 74
Ars Technica AI5d agoRegulationIllinois lawmakers passed a landmark AI accountability bill requiring major frontier AI developers to publish safety frameworks, assess catastrophic risks, report incidents, and undergo third-party audits. OpenAI and Anthropic supported the measure, while industry groups warned that state-level rules could impose subjective compliance duties without national standards. The bill signals that states are continuing to fill the federal AI regulation gap despite Trump’s efforts to limit fragmented state oversight.
How long is Anthropic’s lease with SpaceX? Opinions vary.
TechCrunch AI5d agoBusinessTechCrunch reports that Elon Musk is publicly recasting xAI’s large Anthropic compute deal as short-term and cancellable. However, SpaceX’s own S-1 filing describes payments continuing through May 2029. The discrepancy raises questions about the deal’s duration, financial commitment, and how AI infrastructure obligations are being presented publicly versus in formal disclosures.
RSI is the new AGI — and it’s just as hard to pin down
TechCrunch AI5d agoCommentaryTechCrunch reports that recursive self-improvement, or RSI, is becoming a new AI industry fixation, much like AGI. Researchers and startups including Recursive Superintelligence, Auto-Research, AutoScientist, and Disarray are exploring ways for AI systems to automate parts of AI research. But experts caution that AI-assisted research is not the same as fully autonomous self-improvement, especially while models still struggle with long-term self-direction and verification.
Opus 4.8 on AI Gateway
Vercel Changelog5d agoReleaseVercel’s changelog title indicates that Opus 4.8 is now on AI Gateway. The provided source text does not include details such as pricing, model ID, context window, capabilities, or provider-specific options. For developers already using Vercel AI Gateway, the practical next step is to check the official changelog or model list before integrating it into production workflows.
I think Anthropic and OpenAI have found product-market fit★ 76
Simon Willison's Weblog6d agoCommentarySimon Willison says Claude Code/Cowork and OpenAI Codex have changed the economics of frontier AI. Personal subscriptions can still be bargains for heavy users, but enterprise plans are increasingly priced like API token usage. His core claim is that coding agents burn far more tokens, yet deliver enough value to high-paid knowledge workers that companies will pay materially more.
AI tried to bury this politician — now people have actually heard of him★ 72
The Verge AI6d agoRegulationThe Verge frames New York’s 12th District Democratic primary as a proxy fight over AI regulation. OpenAI-linked backers and an Anthropic-backed PAC are spending on opposite sides of Alex Bores’ congressional run. The irony is that attacks meant to weaken Bores may have made him more visible, turning a local race into a national signal about AI political power.
OpenRouter more than doubles valuation to $1.3B in a year
TechCrunch AI7d agoBusinessOpenRouter, an AI gateway startup founded in 2023, raised a $113 million Series B led by CapitalG. The round reportedly values the company at about $1.3 billion post-money, more than doubling from its estimated $547 million valuation after its June 2025 Series A. The company says it now offers access to over 400 models, has 8 million global users, and processes 100 trillion tokens per month.
Some ideas for what comes next, May 2026
Interconnects (Nathan L.)7d agoCommentaryNathan Lambert argues that 2026 AI progress is becoming higher-stakes, with model capabilities, work patterns, economics, and real-world risks all escalating. He says open models still lack a true Claude Code and Opus 4.5-style agent moment, and Gemini has no clear competitor to Claude Code or Codex yet. The essay also tracks Mythos, American open-model momentum, frontier-lab competition, and mounting intervention from governments and other power structures.
Import AI 458: Reckoning with the future; and a singularity story★ 74
Import AI (Jack Clark)7d agoCommentaryThis Import AI issue is a long essay and fiction piece about living through rapid AI progress. Clark uses personal experience and Anthropic’s internal use of Claude to show work shifting toward delegation, verification, observability, and agent management. He then offers speculative 2026-2028 predictions around biology, autonomous companies, robotics, recursive self-improvement, and a positive singularity story focused on healthcare.
Anthropic Co-founder Speaks at Vatican on Pope Leo XIV’s AI Encyclical
INSIDE 硬塞 AI7d agoEthicsPope Leo XIV released Magnifica Humanitas, the Vatican’s first top-level document focused on AI. The encyclical centers on human dignity and calls on the AI industry to take ethics seriously and accept external oversight. Anthropic’s co-founder speaking at the Vatican highlights how AI governance is becoming a broader public, moral, and institutional issue beyond company self-regulation.
Uber president says AI spending is getting ‘harder to justify’
The Verge AI7d agoBusinessUber reportedly exhausted its annual AI budget just four months into 2026. President and COO Andrew Macdonald said the company is not seeing a clear link between increased Claude Code token consumption and more meaningful output. The story highlights a broader enterprise shift from AI adoption enthusiasm toward stricter scrutiny of cost, productivity, and ROI.
Corey Quinn on Anthropic's Influence on the Pope's AI Ethics Encyclical
Simon Willison's Weblog7d agoCommentaryCloud commentator Corey Quinn reacted to Anthropic co-founder Christopher Olah's influence on the Pope's new AI ethics encyclical, 'Magnifica Humanitas'. Quinn joked that getting the Pope to canonize a product's technical limitations as a spiritual treatise is the ultimate lobbying feat. The commentary highlights the surreal intersection of AI safety advocacy, corporate branding, and global religious authority.