frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

Understanding ChatGPT Work

https://simonwillison.net/2026/Aug/30/understanding-chatgpt-work/
58•gmays•1h ago

Comments

Kuinox•1h ago
There is more to the browser, it can give you a remote desktop access to the browser.

So it's not completely headless.

But when I tried it, the remote control completely froze after a few seconds.

paytonjjones•48m ago
> I believe ChatGPT Work sessions are billed against your Codex allowance, while ChatGPT Chat Sessions get their own, separate allowance. This may help explain the model availability differences

That's correct, and also why ChatGPT Work is DOA for me personally.

I need 100% of my Codex budget for Codex.

Too bad, it would have been nice to have a few extra features for the chat interface.

saithound•41m ago
If we voice this opinion publicly, the most likely end result is that OpenAI will start billing our chat sessioms against our Codex budget too.
arcanemachiner•34m ago
I thought they just did this? People were using some loophole to use their Chat sessions to power their Codex usage after their Codex quotas had run out.
paytonjjones•21m ago
No, it's still separate. I don't know what that exploit was though, so possibly they just patched that.
skybrian•31m ago
Similarly, I use my budget with Shelley on exe.dev. But it seems nice that as far as I can tell, for ChatGPT usage, coding agents compete on a level footing.

I still might try ChatGPT Work sometime if there was some feature I couldn't get from Shelley.

tristanj•45m ago
I think most people are sleeping on the ChatGPT Work/Codex computer use feature. It's incredibly useful. I can remote in from the app, voice it instructions, then let it work in the background. When I tell it "draft a reply to this email (which it has access to thru the gmail connector) and attach the latest docs" or "fill out this multistep immigration electronic travel authorisation form using my passport files saved in the folder", it just asks for the relevant info and handles the rest. It opens its internal web browser and programmatically fills out the forms.

It gets the task done in 5-10 minutes. It's it bit slow since I'm not paying extra for ultrafast mode, but it gets the job done. Frees up the brain to do other tasks.

It's exactly like vibe coding but for computer tasks.

wpasc•39m ago
agreed on the notion that

> people are sleeping on the ChatGPT Work/Codex

just in general. I find it to be far superior (imo) for all tasks atm. Claude just overdoes things in writing, coding, architecture, etc

ValentineC•33m ago
> "fill out this multistep immigration electronic travel authorisation form using my passport files saved in the folder"

It's both awesome and scary at the same time to realising that most AI these days can work on something like this that's official and tedious, and probably not screw up too much (or do better at it than some people with fat fingers).

alansaber•26m ago
Less bureaucracy should be the focus of AI marketing, rather than global superintelligent robots or smut generation
cwmoore
AmazingEveryDay•43m ago
The bots see a simonwillison.net post, the bots upvote. ffs.
arcanemachiner•33m ago
If it makes you feel any better, I have just upvoted every submission made by your account.
greyb•43m ago
Great article. I will add that Extra High and Pro levels of work are available in ChatGPT for Teams ($25 USD/seat, min 2 seats); not just the $100+ tier.
saithound•38m ago
Not for long. Too late to get Business now to exploit this, since EH and the small credit-free Pro allowance will soon be restricted to Premium Seats ($100/m).
OutOfHere•35m ago
Work is for heavy work that runs in the background. It can make a hundred slide deck for me with speaker notes and visual verification of each slide, all without breaking a sweat. See my gist ac89399e688ab5c85ad021f091606e36 for the skill.

The things it can't do is use the embedding or TTS models as a part of its quota. It also cannot read a video.

cwmoore•24m ago
Understanding ChatGpt Retirement

—

tesnorindian•16m ago
I became a pelican fan, thanks to Simon. Looks like Simon keeps thinking about pelicans each time he prompts to any LLM. :)
simonw•8m ago
I just updated the article to link to this site: https://codex-tool-reference.simonw.chatgpt.site/

Which I created using this prompt in a fresh Work session:

> Build a site that lists every one of your tools - nearly grouped into categories - and for each one explain what it does. Try to exactly duplicate arguments and tool descriptions where possible. Design aesthetic should be technical docs, minimal flare

•
23m ago
Lets just not redo subscription gods
bredren•31m ago
I am not sure I understand how this is better from using Claude Code from the mobile app.

Or Codex from the ChatGPT app.

If you have supplied tooling on your system, you have access to all of this and more.

I think the idea is most people don’t have a machine up and available, nor maintain skills for interacting with their core services?

One thing that keeps me from adopting codex more deeply is the architecture around mobile access.

Claude Code makes this trivial /rc and you are done.

Codex requires you run the desktop app and additional authentication requirements. The result of this has been codex is almost always relegated to fleet worker rather than orchestrator.

I wonder if the emphasis on this work feature has something to do w the persistent hurdles to remote control if codex sessions.

alansaber•28m ago
Maybe for the occasional something. If I had an actual workflow i'd prefer a dedicated tool over the newest chatgpt "do everything" app.

“I just chose words carefully”

https://unsung.aresluna.org/i-just-chose-words-carefully/
364•zdw•4h ago•95 comments

Creepy Crawlies

https://people.kernel.org/monsieuricon/creepy-crawlies
959•zdw•1d ago•465 comments

Understanding ChatGPT Work

https://simonwillison.net/2026/Aug/30/understanding-chatgpt-work/
58•gmays•1h ago•21 comments

Matrox: Graphics for Professionals

https://www.abortretry.fail/p/matrox
38•BirAdam•3h ago•7 comments

Haiku R1/beta6 has been released

https://www.haiku-os.org/news/2026-08-26_haiku_r1_beta6
265•metrofun•11h ago•82 comments

CobaltC – The Successor to C?

https://strawberry9.github.io/the-wrong-memory/Appendix_06.html
4•SilentLambda•43m ago•2 comments

Cores in space: The core memory module from a 1980 Spacelab computer

https://www.righto.com/2026/08/spacelab-core-memory.html
85•pwg•7h ago•13 comments

Why do I lose my passion and want to do nothing?

22•hanstyle•29m ago•9 comments

Show HN: NFC Energy-Harvesting PCB Business Card with an MCU

https://wilsonharper.net/projects/businesscard/
120•WilsonHarper•2d ago•12 comments

How to build a diffusion language model

https://kuleshov-group.github.io/blog/blog/2026/how-to-build-a-diffusion-language-model/
20•volodia•3h ago•2 comments

It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell

https://blog.vghaisas.com/rube-goldberg-doorbell/
18•vghaisas•2d ago•4 comments

Sort branches by last commit date

https://ryangreenberg.com/til/git-branches-by-commit-date/
95•speckx•5d ago•34 comments

Continuous Diffusion Language Models (CDLM's)

https://sander.ai/2026/08/24/continuous-dlms.html
65•peter_d_sherman•6h ago•26 comments

Commercially Available Bike Generators Are Not Sustainable (2011)

https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2011/05/bike-powered-electricity-generators-are-not-sustainable/
36•baud147258•4d ago•26 comments

Why open source rocks – a new SM750 (Silicon Motion GPU) HDMI Driver

https://github.com/KodeMunkie/sm750hdmifb
79•SillyUsername•8h ago•34 comments

Hacking IKEA Furniture

https://greenlightning.eu/diy/hacking-ikea-furniture/
273•greenlightning•15h ago•186 comments

Relm4 makes developing beautiful cross-platform applications idiomatic

https://relm4.org/
16•Bluestein•4d ago•9 comments

Coordination Headwind: How Organizations Are Like Slime Molds

https://komoroske.com/slime-mold/
135•rzk•11h ago•45 comments

Artie (YC S23) Is Hiring Technical AES

https://www.artie.com/careers?ashby_jid=e87b84d2-78b3-41a3-937a-47e83643cdf1
1•j-cheong•10h ago

Startup Anti-Patterns

https://www.itamarnovick.com/intro-to-startup-anti-pattern-series/
95•rzk•11h ago•50 comments

Dad’s Custom Atari Peripherals

https://www.goto10retro.com/p/dads-custom-atari-peripherals
107•rbanffy•3d ago•14 comments

Arbitrary code execution in QubesOS via copy-to-VM error reporting backchannel

https://www.qubes-os.org/news/2026/08/29/qsb-118/
211•vntok•18h ago•84 comments

How would you know whether an ancient culture had zero?

https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2026/08/21/ancient-number-system/
31•ibobev•3d ago•6 comments

SolarWindow launches 0.85 mm-thick, self-adhesive solar film

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2026/08/27/https-www-pv-magazine-com-2026-08-27-solarwindow-launches-...
6•thelastgallon•19m ago•2 comments

Zig: Pointer Stability for ArrayLists

https://ziglang.org/devlog/2026/#2026-08-27
89•tosh•12h ago•63 comments

Longest Straight Line Paths on Water or Land on the Earth (2018)

https://arxiv.org/abs/1804.07389
195•joebig•18h ago•56 comments

Flock Safety's controversial CEO just got a taste of his own medicine

https://www.neowin.net/news/the-ceo-of-americas-biggest-surveillance-network-just-got-a-taste-of-...
11•devonnull•25m ago•1 comments

Omarchy: Any User Process Can Escalate to Root

https://0xcc.io/posts/omarchy-root-creds/
445•trap0xcc•11h ago•424 comments

Adding a directional cost bias to a TSP heuristic reveals better local optima

https://tsp.uncledroid.app
4•Abhijit8086•6d ago•1 comments

Electric rain can eat through metal

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/electric-rain-can-eat-through-metal/
101•sohkamyung•3d ago•21 comments