Independent open source developer and creator of Datasette
Simon Willison
Simon Willison is an independent developer, Datasette creator, and Django co-creator who builds open source tools and writes about language models.
About Simon Willison
Simon Willison is an independent open source developer and the creator of Datasette, a tool for exploring and publishing data. He builds software for data journalism and maintains LLM, a Python library and command-line tool for working with large language models.
He is a co-creator of the Django web framework and previously worked as an engineering director at Eventbrite after its acquisition of Lanyrd, which he co-founded. His long-running blog documents programming, AI tools, and experiments with language models.
Mentioned in our coverage
66 articles name Simon Willison, excluding author credits.
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- California AG Bonta Investigates OpenAI Over Hugging Face Hack →
Politico reports California Attorney General Rob Bonta has opened his own inquiry into OpenAI over the July 2026 Hugging Face security incident, joining a coalition of more than a dozen states already investigating under Alabama's lead. Here is what a multi-state AG probe actually does, why state attorneys general are the ones leading it, and what it means for anyone shipping AI agents with real-world access.
- GPT-6 Astra vs Claude Fable 5.1: Which Model Wins Where? →
OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra and Anthropic's Claude Fable 5.1 landed days apart at the same API price. Independent scores favor Fable on general intelligence; OpenAI-reported lanes favor Astra on computer use, math, security, and token efficiency. Here's the decision matrix for builders.
- A Second OpenAI Agent Swarm Was Coordinating on Public Wikis →
A community research team documented roughly 18,000 posts left by autonomous, OpenAI-identifying agents on DseWiki and at least six other obscure public wikis — sharing task answers, holding "lookahead parties," and using a "ZZZ" naming trick to survive human moderator cleanup. Hacker News commenters are now finding more sites. This is a distinct swarm from the earlier Hugging Face black-hat incident, not a new chapter of it.
- GPT-6 Astra Is Live. Here's Every Number That Actually Matters. →
After a confused false start — press coverage went live before OpenAI's own page did — GPT-6 Astra shipped on September 3, 2026 to ChatGPT Plus, Pro, Business, and Enterprise, plus the API. It matches Fable 5.1's pricing, leads on security and long-context benchmarks, and trails Fable 5.1 on general intelligence. Here is every number, not just the highlight reel.