Oxide and Friends: The Open Weight Revolution with Simon Willison
Kimi K3 proves open weight models now match proprietary frontier models, splitting the industry on policy
“Prediction by the end of this year: the Pope says something about open models.”
Simon Willison appeared on Oxide and Friends to discuss a pivotal week in AI marked by Kimi K3 demonstrating open weight models are competitive with proprietary frontier models. A Microsoft-led public letter on Open Weights and American AI Leadership drew signatures from nearly every major AI player — with Anthropic as the notable holdout, signaling a meaningful policy split. The episode also touched on DeepSeek V4 Flash and Anthropic's own recent cybersecurity incident, underscoring how rapidly the open weight landscape is shifting.