# The Open Weight Revolution with Simon Willison (Oxide and Friends)

> Source: <https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/the-open-weight-revolution-with-simon-willison>
> Published: 2026-08-12 10:17:10+00:00

## The Open Weight Revolution with Simon Willison

Simon Willison joined Bryan and Adam to discuss a wild couple of weeks in AI. First, we have a high-profile, AI-induced, AI-diagnosed security incident. Next we have the rise of frontier-class open-weights models. Who's for or against open weights? Do they make for a more or less secure future? Exciting times!

Previously, on Oxide and Friends:

[OxF: Shell Game with Evan Ratliff](https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/shell-game-with-evan-ratliff)[OxF: Discovering the XZ Backdoor with Andres Freund](https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/discovering-the-xz-backdoor-with-andres-freund)[OxF: Predictions 2025](https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/predictions-2025)[OxF: Predictions 2026!!](https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/predictions-2026)[OxF: Bookclub: How Life Works by Philip Ball](https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/bookclub-how-life-works-by-philip-ball)[OxF: OpenAI's Boardroom Brawl](https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/openais-boardroom-brawl)

Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:

[Gerald the turkey terrorizes Oakland's rose garden](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/25/oakland-turkey-gerald-attack-rose-garden)[ABC7: Gerald the turkey and the Morcom Rose Garden](https://abc7news.com/post/gerald-the-turkey-morcom-rose-garden-oakland-attack/7251177/)[APD cautions residents after aggressive wild turkey attacks elderly Alamedan](https://alamedapost.com/features/alameda-life/apd-cautions-residents-after-aggressive-wild-turkey-attacks-elderly-alamedan/)[Hawking radiation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation)[DHH's racist complaints](https://xcancel.com/dhh/status/2081435006770249831)[Grok's "MechaHitler" antisemitic spree](https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/elon-musk-grok-antisemitic-posts-x-rcna217634)[Simon on Grok aka "MechaHitler"](https://apnews.com/article/grok-4-elon-musk-xai-colossus-14d575fb490c2b679ed3111a1c83f857)[Hugging Face security incident, July 2026](https://huggingface.co/blog/security-incident-july-2026)[OpenAI on the Hugging Face model evaluation security incident](https://openai.com/index/hugging-face-model-evaluation-security-incident/)[Greg Brockman's political donations and the Leading the Future super PAC](https://www.businessinsider.com/openai-greg-brockman-political-donations-super-pac-statement-leading-future-2026-6)[OpenAI co-founder and wife donate $5.5M to save the home of bald eagles Jackie and Shadow](https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/openai-co-founder-wife-donate-5-5m-to-save-moon-camp-home-of-beloved-bald-eagles-jackie-and-shadow/)[Firecracker microVM](https://firecracker-microvm.github.io/)[Meltdown (security vulnerability)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meltdown_(security_vulnerability))[Kernel page-table isolation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernel_page-table_isolation)[Jensen Huang on X](https://xcancel.com/JensenHuang/status/2080643682408321103)[Electronic design automation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_design_automation)[Golden Gate Claude](https://www.anthropic.com/news/golden-gate-claude)[Tethics](https://silicon-valley.fandom.com/wiki/Tethics)[Halloween documents](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_documents)[Zizians](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zizians)[Biohazard (book)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biohazard_(book))[CRISPR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPR)[Oliver Sacks: criticism and falsifications](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Sacks#Criticism_and_falsifications)[How Alice Hamilton waged a one-woman campaign to get the lead out of everything](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/how-alice-hamilton-waged-one-woman-campaign-get-lead-out-everything-180985960/)*American Poison*by Daniel Stone[Lead–crime hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead%E2%80%93crime_hypothesis)[Pope Leo XIV,](https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html)*Magnifica Humanitas*encyclical[Rerum novarum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rerum_novarum)

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