Simon Willison on AI

Simon Willison@simonw

I was disappointed by OpenAI's thin initial post on the sycophancy behavior bug, but it turns out they were still working on a much more comprehensive postmortem which they've now published - it's absolutely fascinating

723 likes13 repliesPosted May 2, 2025

Remix this post

Your note

Private to you, and used when you remix this post.

Viral score

Based on absolute engagement — the platform doesn’t expose follower counts here, so large accounts score higher.

From likes, comments.

Why it worked

Promises an answer and holds it back, which pulls the reader down the post.
Opens a question in the reader’s mind and withholds the answer until later.
Written from experience rather than as advice, which is harder to argue with.
Short enough to read in full without expanding, which removes a step before the point lands.

The mechanics

Hook: Promises an answer it withholds
Structure: Hook
Style: Conversational paragraphs at a steady pace.
Tone: personal
Mechanisms: Curiosity gap
Written for: People building with AI

Analysis by ViralLoop — not written by the original author.

Topics

AI Engineering

Post by Simon Willison on X