<p><strong>Release:</strong> <a href="https://github.com/datasette/datasette-agent-micropython/releases/tag/0.1a0">datasette-agent-micropython 0.1a0</a></p> <p>I want <a href="https://agent.datasette.io">Datasette Agent</a> to be able to generate and execute Python code safely. This alpha is looking promising so far. GPT-5.5 has so far failed to break out of the sandbox!</p> <p>Tags: <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/python">python</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/sandboxing">sandboxing</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/datasette">datasette</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/webassembly">webassembly</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/datasette-agent">datasette-agent</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/micropython">micropython</a></p>

Clare Duffy / CNN: Microsoft and Mayo Clinic partner for an AI model trained on Mayo's medical data, with plans to build an AI healthcare assistant and AI tools for clinicians  —  People have been seeking out health information online since the dawn of the internet.  And now, tens of millions of people …

The author (not pictured) has been a freelancer for nearly a decade. Luis Alvarez/Getty Images I've been a freelancer for nearly 10 years, and my career is stable. However, I always feel a low-grade uncertainty. I make sure I'm constantly adapting along with my industry and looking for new opportunities. When I became a freelance writer nearly a decade ago, I assumed the uncertainty would eventually fade. I imagined there would come a point where I'd built enough relationships, landed enough recurring clients, and published enough work that I'd finally feel secure. But that moment never really came. Today, I make a stable living as a freelance health and fitness writer. I write for major publications, have long-term editorial relationships, and often have more work than I can realistically take on. On paper, my career looks stable. And yet, I still approach my work as if I were trying to land my next job. Part of that is practicality. Freelancing teaches you quickly that stability is often temporary. Editors leave. Budgets shrink. Publications pivot. Consistent work can disappear overnight. I've had stretches where everything felt solid, only to lose multiple clients within weeks through no fault of my own. Once you experience that a few times, it permanently changes the way you think and approach your work. The mindset never fully turns off Even during busy periods, part of my brain is always scanning for what's next. I'm pitching editors, maintaining relationships, updating lists of ideas, and paying attention to industry shifts. The rise of AI has intensified that feeling over the last few years. As someone who writes for a living, I've had to adapt quickly, learn new tools, and think carefully about what still makes human-driven writing valuable. From the outside, freelancing can look flexible and relaxed. And in many ways, it is. It allows me to drop off and pick up my kids from school, coach their soccer teams, and handle daily life in a way a traditional job likely wouldn't. But mentally, I rarely feel fully "off." There's always a low-level awareness that I should be working and that if I stop pushing for too long, opportunities could dry up. The stress doesn't disappear when things are going well One of the strangest things about freelancing is that external success doesn't automatically create internal security. I still feel anxious when I send a pitch email or submit a story draft. I still overanalyze unanswered messages. I still wonder, occasionally, whether the work will eventually dry up despite years of evidence suggesting otherwise. And I still regularly deal with imposter syndrome. Some of that is probably tied to my personality. But I also think many freelancers quietly carry this same low-grade uncertainty, especially those of us supporting families. I'm 39 years old now. I have a wife, two kids, a mortgage, and responsibilities that feel very real every month. There's no corporate structure absorbing the risk for me. If work slows down, I feel it directly. That pressure has made me more disciplined, proactive, and resilient. But it's also made it difficult to completely relax professionally, even during good periods. It's become part of my identity At this point, I'm not sure I could fully shut off the "feast or famine" mindset even if I wanted to. Freelancing has conditioned me to constantly adapt, reinvent myself, and prepare for change. In some ways, I think that's kept me sharp. I'm always learning new skills, studying trends, and thinking about how to evolve. One day, I'm interviewing a researcher about blood sugar regulation; the next, I'm writing about fitness trends or trying to understand how AI might reshape media over the next decade. That constant motion can be exhausting. But it can also feel energizing. The trade-off I've accepted There are days when I envy people like my wife, who have clearly defined careers, predictable paychecks, and the ability to leave work at work. That kind of work stability sounds incredibly appealing. But freelancing has also given me things I'm not willing to give up: flexibility, autonomy, and the ability to shape my life around my family instead of structuring my family around work. The uncertainty is the price I pay for that freedom. I still approach my career like I'm job hunting because, in some ways, I always am. Not out of desperation, but because freelancing requires you to stay engaged, visible, and adaptable at all times. At some point, I stopped seeing that mindset as a temporary phase and started recognizing it as part of the job itself, which has been both relieving and nerve-racking. Read the original article on Business Insider

<p><strong>Release:</strong> <a href="https://github.com/simonw/micropython-wasm/releases/tag/0.1a1">micropython-wasm 0.1a1</a></p> <p>Fixes for some limitations that emerged while I was trying to use this to build <code>datasette-agent-micropython</code>.</p> <p>Tags: <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/python">python</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/sandboxing">sandboxing</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/webassembly">webassembly</a></p>

Reed Albergotti / Semafor: An interview with Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman about catching up with “what was state of the art just a few months ago”, refusing to use distillation, more  —  THE SCENE  —  Not long ago, Microsoft leapt ahead of competitors by funding OpenAI when it was a fledgling research lab.

Brendan Foody is the CEO of Mercor. Taylor Hill/FilmMagic via Getty Images Mercor's CEO says the $10 billion startup now spends more on AI tokens than employee pay. Before long, he says, the average company could be spending more on AI compute than on salaries. Some tech leaders are questioning whether soaring AI costs are producing returns. What happens when a company spends more on AI than on its workers? Mercor's CEO says his startup is already finding out. "Right now we're spending more on tokens for our internal agents than we are on employee head count," Foody said during an appearance on the "20VC" podcast on Monday. When host Harry Stebbings asked if Mercor's token spending on AI agents exceeded salaries, Foody replied: "That's correct. It's pretty incredible." Mercor — a $10 billion startup that helps companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic train AI models through a network of its human experts — has become one of the fastest-growing companies in the AI ecosystem since its 2023 launch. As of October 2025, per PitchBook, it had around 300 employees. The company did not respond to a request for comment. Foody said Mercor uses AI agents across a wide range of functions, including project management, recruiting, accounting, fraud detection, and candidate evaluation. The company has conducted more than 5 million AI-assisted interviews, he said. The executive believes Mercor's spending patterns foreshadow a broader shift across corporate America. "I would bet that in five years the average enterprise spends more on compute than headcount," Foody said. When AI costs more than employees Foody's comments come amid a broader debate among executives over whether rising AI spending is translating into meaningful business returns. Uber COO Andrew Macdonald recently said he has yet to see a clear link between rising AI spending and proportional productivity gains. Foody said that falling costs and rapidly improving model capabilities are driving a Jevons paradox-style effect, where cheaper AI leads to significantly more consumption rather than less. He said Mercor measures the performance of different AI models for specific business tasks and evaluates whether newer models offer better value. The result, he said, is a future in which AI becomes a core operating expense for companies, potentially rivaling or surpassing the cost of human labor itself. "Humans will still play an important role at the things models can't do," he said. "But I expect that cost of inference, cost of compute will exceed that." Read the original article on Business Insider

Uber's cutback has occurred after the company had reportedly encouraged staff to use AI as much as possible.

High-autonomy agents with broad permissions and unfettered access are a recipe for disaster, and enterprises need to act now before they become the next horror story.

The author stressed before leaving for a 10-day trip about her 11-year-old. Courtesy of the author While I was traveling to Greenland, my son unexpectedly became independent. He started taking the bus and making his own lunches without me. The experience gave both of us more confidence and freedom. I love to travel, but I rarely take solo trips because it's hard to be away from my family. I miss my children when we are apart, but the practicalities of packing lunches and shuffling kids to school and soccer practice are a bigger hurdle than homesickness. I like to think that everyone in my family needs me. However, my youngest son, aged 11, is still in elementary school and relies on me to make his lunches and get him to and from school. I am always particularly worried about how he will get by without his Mom when I am away. Despite my initial hesitation, I recently took a trip to Greenland to mark a milestone birthday. The trip was a dream for me, full of glacier hiking and exploring a remote part of the world that's not yet overrun with tourists. I planned to be away for 10 days, which seemed like an eternity, but I decided to do it anyway. I planned ahead so things at home would run smoothly To prepare my family for my absence, I left detailed notes about everyone's daily schedule. I baked lasagnas, created a meal plan, shopped for ingredients, and pre-made a handful of packed lunches. I called in favors to make sure my son had rides to and from school every day, and left my husband the names and phone numbers of the parents who agreed to pitch in to help with childcare and shuttle our son around while I was gone. Just getting everything in order was exhausting and took hours. It turns out I didn't need to worry. My son started being more independent while I was away About midway through my trip, I called my family to check in. "You should probably tell Mom what I've been doing, Dad," I heard my son whisper. It took some prodding, but I discovered that while I was gone, my husband started sending my 11-year-old to school on the public bus, and that my son had started making his own lunch. Once, when a friend got stuck at work and couldn't pick him up as planned, he took the bus home too. When I expressed concern about this abrupt change, my son insisted that he was a big boy and could handle it. He hadn't been late to school once, and he hadn't gone hungry. I was unsure about all of these changes, but I wasn't there to stop them. When I returned, I assumed things would return to normal. My son insisted on taking the bus, although he said he "wouldn't mind" if I kept making his lunch. I agreed to keep packing lunches and even enjoy showing him love in this way, knowing that he is growing up very quickly. Nevertheless, he now often wakes before me and packs his own lunches anyway. I still worry, and make sure my son can stay in touch when he's out in the big, wide world alone. He has a phone he can use to check the bus schedule and maps, and to text me when he arrives at school or gets on the bus to come home. Although giving my son so much independence so quickly wasn't the plan, he rose to the challenge and is thriving. My son's newfound independence is better for both of us Since I'm no longer driving my son to and from school and packing lunches every morning, I've added about an hour and a half to my day. Giving up this time with my son has been bittersweet, but time has shown that we are both ready for the change. Getting out the door in the morning used to be the most stressful part of my day, and I've enjoyed the slower pace. I use the extra time I have to myself to start exercising more and planning healthier meals. I've managed to see friends more, too, for morning walks or lunch dates. I've been wanting to do all of these things for a while, but I hadn't managed to fit them in between work, household, and childcare responsibilities. I'm not sure what the next leap in independence will be for my son. However, this experience shows he's been ready for more responsibility before I was ready to give it to him. And I was ready for it, too. Read the original article on Business Insider

The National Center for Atmospheric Research won't be losing its supercomputer.

Microsoft on Tuesday took the wraps off Adaptive Spec-driven Scoring for Evaluation and Regression Testing, an open source framework for spinning up AI evaluations.

Enterprise decision intelligence startup RelationalAI Inc. is advancing its capabilities for Snowflake Inc.’s AI Data Cloud platform. At Snowflake Summit 2026 today, it announced a series of updates that aim to provide artificial intelligence agents with the context, reasoning and post-training they need to autonomously make smarter business decisions. The company said its goal with […] The post RelationalAI beefs up its reasoning capabilities to enhance AI agent decision-making appeared first on SiliconANGLE.

AI agents are changing how you interact with your PC. Creators, developers, and AI enthusiasts are already using these agents extensively to assist with... AI agents are changing how you interact with your PC. Creators, developers, and AI enthusiasts are already using these agents extensively to assist with day-to-day tasks such as coding, video editing, and content management. NVIDIA and Microsoft are teaming up to enable the next generation of developers to build on-device agents on the Windows platform, with easier setup, native security… Source

Enterprises are looking to get the job done, not for a specific brand of AI.

Planning documents for "Scout" say the plan is to "make people addicted" to the tool before adding new features.

Jay Peters / The Verge: Microsoft debuts MAI-Thinking-1, its first advanced reasoning model, trained “from the ground up on clean data, without distillation from third-party models”  —  MAI-Thinking-1 is one of seven new models announced at Build 2026. … Microsoft announced a bunch of new in-house AI models …

Stephen Nellis / Reuters: Microsoft unveils Majorana 2 quantum chip, which was developed with the help of AI, and says it will have commercially useful quantum machines by 2029  —  Microsoft (MSFT.O) on Tuesday unveiled a new quantum computing chip that it redesigned with the help of AI, saying it now believes …

A new reading subscription from Everand offers access to both e-books and audiobooks, and Fable's book club community.

Lily Hay Newman / Wired: Google adds a scam-detection feature, built on RCS, to Android 12 and later that verifies whether a call is coming from the caller's actual smartphone  —  Available for Android 12 and later, the anti-scam feature is baked into Google Dialer, which sends a silent “confirmation signal” …

Ram Iyer / TechCrunch: Microsoft announces the Agent Control Specification, an open-source standard that aims to provide granular, consistent governance over AI agent behavior  —  As AI agents grow ever more capable, enterprises racing to put them to work across applications, workflows, and products face a new challenge …