Introducing talkie: a 13B vintage language model from 1930
2 experts are actively discussing the implications.
“It's a good question, and one someone tried out! With an LLM trained only on pre-1930 text they were able to teach it to write python code with just a few examples simonwillison.net/2026/Apr/28/...” evidence ↗
Questions & unknowns
1 expertWhat remains unresolved or contested.
“It's a good question, and one someone tried out! With an LLM trained only on pre-1930 text they were able to teach it to write python code with just a few examples simonwillison.net/2026/Apr/28/...”
Context & explanation
1 expertBackground, chronology and why it matters.
“Like the entire point of an LLM is that it can generalize based on instructions. People have proven this! Go look at the source here; a LLM trained only on pre-1930s text was able to write python based on in-context examples. simonwillison.net/2026/Apr/28/...”