Simon Willison
Simon Willison is a software engineer with 25 years of experience, currently a one-person company. Co-creator of Django (the web framework powering Instagram, Pinterest, and Spotify); creator of Datasette (data analysis tool used in investigative journalism); author of 100+ open-source projects. Coined the term “prompt injection”; popularised “agentic engineering” and “AI slop.” Publishes his ongoing book on agentic engineering chapter-by-chapter at simonwillison.net.
Key ideas
- Vibe coding vs. agentic engineering. Vibe coding (not looking at code) is fine for personal tools; irresponsible for production code. Agentic engineering (professional coding with agents) requires full engineering depth — 25 years of experience, not less.
- Dark factory pattern. The next frontier: agents produce production-grade code that engineers do not directly review line-by-line. Automated tests are the verification layer. Currently experimental.
- Challenger disaster prediction. AI is experiencing normalisation of deviance (Challenger disaster academic concept): repeated uneventful deployments despite known prompt injection risk are building institutional overconfidence. A major AI security disaster is coming.
- Human agency is irreplaceable. Agents have no agency — no human motivations, no capacity to decide what problems matter. Human agency (choosing what to build and why) becomes more valuable, not less.
- Test-driven development with agents. Tests are essential for parallelising agents safely. Red/Green TDD is a useful compact prompt shortcut agents understand.
Appearances
| Source | Date | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Simon Willison on Agentic Engineering and the Future of Code | ~2025 | Vibe coding vs. agentic engineering; dark factory pattern; Challenger disaster prediction; human agency; test-driven development; cognitive load management; AI slop |