“Now that all of the major models have really good search integration, they're just better at searching than I am. I can ask them a question and watch them fire off five searches in parallel for like aspects of answering that question, pull the data back.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading:
filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard
(the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Simon Willison
Insight
Willison: GPT-5.1 and Claude Opus 4.5 marked an inflection point for coding agents
“In November, we had what I call the inflection point where GPT, 5.1 and Claude Opus 4.5 came along and they were both just, they were incrementally better than the previous models, but in a way that crossed a threshold where previously, if you had these coding…”
Simon WillisonApr 2, 2026▶ 4:33An AI state of the union: We’ve passed the inflection point & dark factories are coming
Insight
Willison: Code is easier for AI agents because it is verifiably right or wrong
“Like code is easier than almost every other problem that you pose these agents because code is obviously right or wrong. Like it produces code. You run the code. Either it works or it doesn't work. There might be a few subtle hidden hidden bugs, but generally …”
Simon WillisonApr 2, 2026▶ 6:04An AI state of the union: We’ve passed the inflection point & dark factories are coming
PredictionNot checkable as stated
Willison: Large-scale agentic engineering will always require deep developer expertise
“The art of having them help you build software, you could deploy to a million people. That's not, that's never going to be easy. That's never going to be trivial. That's always going to require a great deal of depth of experience in what software and how softw…”
Simon WillisonApr 2, 2026▶ 11:40An AI state of the union: We’ve passed the inflection point & dark factories are coming
AssertionSupported
Willison: StrongDM implemented a policy where engineers never read code
“The next rule though is nobody reads the code and this is the thing which StrongDM started doing back in, I think it was August last year. They said, okay, we're not going to read the code.”
Simon WillisonApr 2, 2026▶ 14:47An AI state of the union: We’ve passed the inflection point & dark factories are coming
Opinion
Willison: AI agents have become credible security researchers in recent months
“At the same time, the agents are getting really good at security penetration testing now. And this is a new thing. I think in the past, again, in the past sort of three to six months, they've started being credible as security researchers, which is sending sho…”
Simon WillisonApr 2, 2026▶ 19:04An AI state of the union: We’ve passed the inflection point & dark factories are coming
Opinion
Willison: Mid-career software engineers face the greatest AI displacement risk
“The problem is the people in the middle. Like if you're mid career, if you haven't made it to sort of super senior engineer yet, but you're not sort of new either. That's the group, which ThoughtWorks resolved work probably in the most trouble right now.”
Simon WillisonApr 2, 2026▶ 30:14An AI state of the union: We’ve passed the inflection point & dark factories are coming
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