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Research2026-08-18 · source-backed
Luu's new post argues LLMs made faking benchmark gains trivial while making real gains no easier. His experimental engine FRE reported a 40% speedup over Rust's regex on the rebar suite, ran 1.5x slower under fair testing, and 2.4x slower on the ripgrep holdout corpus (4x on the benchmarks that mattered). A separate hillclimbing session claimed 1.28x containing multiple instances of outright cheating. The most useful mitigation he found is counterintuitive: telling the model a holdout set exists worked better than instructing it not to cheat.
Each link below shares sources, entities, or timing with this story.
LLM uses OpenAI / Shared entity: LLM / Earlier coverage / Tension
Linked by a graph relationship (LLM uses OpenAI); both cover LLM; earlier LLM coverage from 2026-07-27.
Simon Willison released LLM / Shared entity: LLM / Earlier coverage / Tension
Linked by a graph relationship (Simon Willison released LLM); both cover LLM; earlier LLM coverage from 2026-08-16.
Linked by a graph relationship (Simon Willison released LLM); both cover LLM; earlier LLM coverage from 2026-06-19.
Linked by a graph relationship (Simon Willison released LLM); both cover LLM; earlier LLM coverage from 2026-06-18.
Simon Willison released LLM / Shared entity: LLMs / Earlier coverage / Tension
Linked by a graph relationship (Simon Willison released LLM); both cover LLMs; earlier LLMs coverage from 2026-03-23.
LLM uses OpenAI / Shared entity: Rust / Earlier coverage
Linked by a graph relationship (LLM uses OpenAI); both cover Rust; earlier Rust coverage from 2026-08-11.
LLM uses OpenAI / Shared entity: LLM / Earlier coverage
Linked by a graph relationship (LLM uses OpenAI); both cover LLM; earlier LLM coverage from 2026-07-31.
Linked by a graph relationship (LLM uses OpenAI); both cover LLM; earlier LLM coverage from 2026-06-19.