Last Week in AI

Our 245th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!Recorded on 05/13/2026Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and Jeremie HarrisFeel free to email us your questions and feedback at andreyvkurenkov@gmail.com and/or hello@gladstone.aiRead out our text newsletter and comment on the podcast at https://lastweekin.ai/In this episode:OpenAI released new voice intelligence API features including GPT Realtime 2 (GPT-5-powered) plus realtime translation and Whisper transcription, emphasizing the latency–reasoning tradeoff, larger context, and new guardrails amid fraud risks.Thinking Machines previewed a low-latency, full‑duplex conversational system with a two-model architecture and custom inference stack, reporting strong interactivity benchmark results but without public access or third‑party validation yet.Anthropic pushed further into vertical products with Claude for Legal and deeper AWS availability, while ongoing ecosystem tension grows as platform model providers compete with application-layer companies.Safety, policy, and research updates included OpenAI’s self-harm trusted contact feature, Anthropic work on reducing agent misalignment by training ethical “why” reasoning, OpenAI’s investigation of accidental chain-of-thought grading in RL, and Meta horizon eval updates showing benchmarking limits for long task horizons.Timestamps:(00:00:10) Intro / Banter(00:01:35) Response to listener comments(00:03:27) Sponsor Break Tools & Apps(00:06:27) OpenAI launches new voice intelligence features in its API | TechCrunch(00:15:52) Thinking Machines drops a new, highly responsive model designed for humanlike interactions in real time - SiliconANGLE(00:27:49) Claude For Legal Launches, May Reshape the Legal Tech World – Artificial Lawyer(00:40:27) Threads tests a Meta AI integration that works similarly to Grok | TechCrunch(00:43:08) Google brings agentic AI and vibe-coded widgets to Android | TechCrunch(00:45:33) Google updates AI search to include quotes from Reddit and other sources | TechCrunch Applications & Business(00:47:38) Sam Altman was winning on the stand, but it might not be enough | The Verge(00:55:04) Nvidia C.E.O. Jensen Huang Hitches Ride With Trump to China After Last-Minute Invite - The New York Times(00:58:40) AWS expands Anthropic partnership with Claude Platform launch(01:01:13) Chinese grey market sells Claude API access at 90% off by using stolen credentials, model substitution, and harvesting users' prompts and outputs for resale as AI training data — 'transfer stations' operate through proxy networks that harvest user data(01:06:43) DeepMind Spinout Isomorphic Labs Raises $2.1 Billion to Design Drugs With AI - BloombergProjects & Open Source(01:09:04) Petri: Anthropic Hands Its Alignment Toolbox to Meridian Labs with 3.0 Update(01:12:25) Daybreak': OpenAI's Answer to Anthropic's Project Glasswing Has ArrivedPolicy & Safety(01:14:04) Teaching Claude why(01:21:45) Import AI 455: Automating AI Research(01:28:31) ChatGPT's New Safety Feature Could Alert 'Trusted Contact' to Risk of Self-Harm - CNET(01:30:09) Investigating the consequences of accidentally grading CoT during RL(01:34:46) Natural Language Autoencoders criticism(01:39:15) Review of the "Risks from automated R&D" section in the Anthropic Risk Report (February 2026)Synthetic Media & Art(01:43:39) George Clooney, Tom Hanks, and Meryl Streep back new ‘Human Consent Standard’ for AI licensing | The VergeResearch & Advancements(01:45:10) METR says Claude Mythos is testing the limits of AI evaluation – Startup FortuneSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Our 244th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!Recorded on 05/08/2026Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and Jeremie HarrisFeel free to email us your questions and feedback at andreyvkurenkov@gmail.com and/or hello@gladstone.aiRead out our text newsletter and comment on the podcast at https://lastweekin.ai/In this episode:OpenAI released GPT-5.5 Instant as ChatGPT’s new default model, showing large benchmark gains and crossing a “high” cyber-risk threshold under its preparedness framework, while bio-safety results were mixed.OpenAI investigated and patched ChatGPT’s “goblin” obsession, attributing it to reinforcement-learning rewards that over-amplified playful creature metaphors in a nerdy persona that later bled across versions.Major industry moves included xAI’s Grok 4.3 price cuts and voice tools, Mistral’s unified Medium 3.5 model and Work mode, and Anthropic’s managed-agent upgrades alongside a surprise SpaceX compute deal and reports of a much higher Anthropic valuation.Key policy and security developments covered the Musk–OpenAI trial details, Pentagon AI deployments on classified networks, expanded U.S. government pre-release model reviews, and reports of NSA testing Anthropic’s Mythos on Microsoft software.Timestamps:(00:00:10) Intro / Banter(00:01:14) News Preview(00:04:39) Response to listener commentsTools & Apps(00:13:40) OpenAI releases GPT-5.5 Instant, a new default model for ChatGPT | TechCrunch(00:18:23) ChatGPT Became So Obsessed With Goblins That OpenAI Had to Intervene(00:27:14) xAI launches Grok 4.3 at an aggressively low price and a new, fast, powerful voice cloning suite | VentureBeat(00:33:49) Mistral's new flagship Medium 3.5 folds chat, reasoning, and code into one model(00:39:28) Anthropic updates Claude Managed Agents with three new features - 9to5Mac(00:43:42) ElevenLabs Revamps AI Music Platform as Fan-Focused ServiceApplications & Business(00:44:57) A diary, a threat, and a $30 billion stake: What the Musk vs OpenAI trial has actually shown in its first week - The Times of India(00:55:28) Anthropic, SpaceX Sign Deal to Boost AI Computing Power for Claude Software - Bloomberg(01:01:48) Anthropic in talks with investors to raise funds at $900 billion valuation, higher than OpenAI(01:02:37) Anthropic and OpenAI are both launching joint ventures for enterprise AI services | TechCrunch(01:06:15) Anthropic and FIS Are Building an AI Agent to Help Banks Police Financial Crimes(01:07:02) AMD’s revenue jumps 38 percent from last year as Q1 data center sales hit $5.8 billion. | The Verge(01:08:51) Banks seek to offload risk to avoid ‘choking’ on data centre debt(01:14:08) DeepSeek could be valued at up to $50 billion in first fundraising, sources say | ReutersProjects & Open Source(01:16:14) Natural Language Autoencoders Produce Unsupervised Explanations of LLM Activations(01:22:23) OpenAI just open-sourced its data center networking technologyPolicy & Safety(01:25:02) Pentagon inks deals with Nvidia, Microsoft, and AWS to deploy AI on classified networks | TechCrunch(01:27:27) Google, Microsoft, and xAI will allow the US government to review their new AI models | The Verge(01:32:11) NSA Testing Anthropic’s Mythos to Find Flaws in Microsoft Tech(01:35:42) Introspection Adapters: Training LLMs to Report Their Learned BehaviorsResearch & Advancements(01:41:18) Recursive Multi-Agent Systems(01:51:47) Frontier Coding Agents Can Now Implement an AlphaZero Self-Play Machine Learning Pipeline For Connect Four That Performs Comparably to an External SolverSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Our 243rd episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!Recorded on 04/29/2026Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and Jeremie HarrisFeel free to email us your questions and feedback at andreyvkurenkov@gmail.com and/or hello@gladstone.aiRead out our text newsletter and comment on the podcast at https://lastweekin.ai/In this episode:OpenAI released GPT-5.5 with strong coding-oriented improvements, a system card discussing chain-of-thought monitorability and misalignment testing, higher pricing than GPT-5.4, and notable quirks like a system-prompt warning about “goblins.”xAI launched Grok Voice Think Fast 1.0, claiming large benchmark leads for real-time voice agents and reporting major Starlink customer-support automation and sales conversion impact.DeepSeek open-sourced DeepSeek V4 (Pro and Flash) featuring MoE scaling and 1M-token context via hybrid/compressed attention changes, while Tencent released Hunyuan 3 preview with weaker benchmark performance; a new long-horizon agent benchmark (Clawmark) shows low task success rates.Major business, legal, and policy updates include Google’s planned up-to-$40B investment and 5GW compute commitment to Anthropic, Meta’s AWS Gravitron deal and China blocking Meta’s Manus acquisition, a revamped OpenAI–Microsoft agreement, ongoing Musk–OpenAI trial developments, and new safety/security research on sabotage, document degradation under delegation, and bit-flip attacks.Timestamps:(00:00:10) Intro / Banter(00:02:00) News Preview(00:02:26) Response to listener comments(00:02:55) SponsorsTools & Apps(00:05:55) OpenAI Unveils Its New, More Powerful GPT-5.5 Model - The New York Times(00:23:33) xAI Launches grok-voice-think-fast-1.0: Topping τ-voice Bench at 67.3%, Outperforming Gemini, GPT Realtime, and More - MarkTechPost(00:29:00) Claude can now plug directly into Photoshop, Blender, and Ableton | The VergeProjects & Open Source(00:29:38) China's DeepSeek releases preview of long-awaited V4 model as AI race intensifies(00:47:05) Tencent Unveils Hy3 preview; Model Enhances Agent Capabilities and Real-World Usability - Tencent 腾讯(00:50:14) ClawMark: A Living-World Benchmark for Multi-Turn, Multi-Day, Multimodal Coworker AgentsApplications & Business(00:53:03) Google Plans to Invest Up to $40 Billion in Anthropic(00:56:26) Meta will use hundreds of thousands of AWS Graviton chips(00:59:51) China blocks Meta's $2 billion takeover of AI startup Manus(01:01:45) OpenAI shakes up partnership with Microsoft, capping revenue share payments(01:07:13) Elon Musk Testifies of AI Risk at Trial, Says OpenAI Tried to ‘Steal’ a Charity - WSJ(01:11:50) Judge rejects DOJ bid to delay Anthropic appeal in Pentagon dispute(01:14:42) Google’s Gemini can now run on a single air-gapped server — and vanish when you pull the plug(01:19:07) DeepMind's David Silver just raised $1.1B to build an AI that learns without human data | TechCrunchPolicy & Safety(01:22:47) Evaluating whether AI models would sabotage AI safety research(01:28:59) LLMs Corrupt Your Documents When You Delegate(01:32:50) Temporal Sparse Autoencoders: Leveraging the Sequential Nature of Language for Interpretability(01:39:53) Memorandum on Adversarial Distillation of American AI Models(01:41:41) Teen boys are dating their AI chatbots—and experts warn it could kill their careers | Fortune(01:43:57) Announcing the Anthropic Economic Index Survey(01:45:21) Scoop: CISA lacks access to Anthropic's MythosSynthetic Media & Art(01:48:03) Taylor Swift Files to Trademark Voice and Likeness to Protect Against AI MisuseResearch & Advancements(01:49:15) Maximal Brain Damage Without Data or Optimization: Disrupting Neural Networks via Sign-Bit FlipsSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Our 242nd episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!Recorded on 04/22/2026Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and Jeremie HarrisFeel free to email us your questions and feedback at andreyvkurenkov@gmail.com and/or hello@gladstone.aiRead out our text newsletter and comment on the podcast at https://lastweekin.ai/In this episode:OpenAI released a new ChatGPT image model that excels at accurate text and screenshot-like generations, suggesting a transformer-style approach aligned with agentic “computer use” ambitions.Chinese model activity accelerated with Alibaba’s Qwen 3.6 Max Preview moving to an API-only offering, plus open releases from Moonshot AI (Kimi K2.6, a 1T-parameter MoE) and Minimax (Minimax M 2.7) showing strong benchmark results.Google expanded Deep Research with a “Max” option built on Gemini 3.1 Pro and MCP support for accessing proprietary data, while Mozilla reported using Anthropic’s Claude to find and fix 271 Firefox bugs. Business and policy updates include a reported SpaceX–Cursor deal with a $60B buy option, Cerebras filing for an IPO, Amazon adding $5B to Anthropic alongside a $100B AWS spending pledge, and platform responses to synthetic media like AI music spam and YouTube deepfake takedown requests.Timestamps:(00:00:10) Intro / Banter(00:01:05) News Preview(00:01:41) Sponsors(00:04:41) Response to listener commentsTools & Apps(00:09:40) ChatGPT's new Images 2.0 model is surprisingly good at generating text | TechCrunch(00:16:02) Alibaba Drops Qwen 3.6 Max Preview—Its Most Powerful Model Yet - Decrypt(00:19:26) Google launches Deep Research and Deep Research Max agents to automate complex research(00:25:00) Mozilla Used Anthropic’s Mythos to Find and Fix 271 Bugs in Firefox | WIRED(00:28:35) Ordering with the Starbucks ChatGPT app was a true coffee nightmare | The VergeApplications & Business(00:29:48) SpaceX is working with Cursor and has an option to buy the startup for $60B | TechCrunch(00:34:11) AI chip startup Cerebras files for IPO | TechCrunch(00:38:23) Two startups want to replace how AI learns: one just raised $180M, another is seeking up to $1B(00:38:56) Months-old start-up Recursive Superintelligence raises $500mn for self-teaching AI(00:41:36) Anthropic takes $5B from Amazon and pledges $100B in cloud spending in return | TechCrunch(00:45:09) Kevin Weil and Bill Peebles exit OpenAI as company continues to shed 'side quests' | TechCrunch(00:46:04) Meta hires five Thinking Machines Lab founders including a reported $1.5 billion engineer - Meta cuts 198 Bay Area jobs as even larger layoffs reportedly loom(00:50:12) Meta employees are up in arms over a mandatory program to train AI on their mouse movements and keystrokes(00:51:43) Chinese fabs import record volumes of US chipmaking equipment via Singapore and Malaysia — homegrown tool makers booked record 2025 revenues as price competition squeezes margins(00:54:01) Google Eyes New Chips to Speed Up AI Results, Challenging Nvidia(00:54:20) Canadian quantum company Xanadu soars to $16 billion valuation after Nvidia releaseProjects & Open Source(01:00:13) Moonshot AI releases Kimi-K2.6 model with 1T parameters, attention optimizations - SiliconANGLE(01:05:22) MiniMax Just Open Sourced MiniMax M2.7: A Self-Evolving Agent Model that Scores 56.22% on SWE-Pro and 57.0% on Terminal Bench 2 - MarkTechPostPolicy & Safety(01:06:25) Infusion: Shaping Model Behavior by Editing Training Data via Influence Functions(01:10:25) Scoop: NSA using Anthropic's Mythos despite blacklist(01:11:03) Unauthorized group has gained access to Anthropic’s exclusive cyber tool Mythos, report claimsResearch & Advancements(01:17:21) Parcae: Scaling Laws For Stable Looped Language Models(01:24:20) OccuBench: Evaluating AI Agents on Real-World Professional Tasks via Language Environment SimulationSynthetic Media & Art(01:27:01) Deezer says 44% of songs uploaded to its platform daily are AI-generated | TechCrunch(01:29:47) Celebrities will be able to find and request removal of AI deepfakes on YouTube | The VergeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Our 241st episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!Recorded on 04/18/2026 Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and Jeremie HarrisFeel free to email us your questions and feedback at andreyvkurenkov@gmail.com and/or hello@gladstone.aiRead out our text newsletter and comment on the podcast at https://lastweekin.ai/In this episode:Anthropic released Claude Opus 4.7 with improved benchmark performance, new reasoning controls, better vision and memory, and a detailed system card discussing deception risk, evaluation-awareness steering, and a training bug that accidentally supervised chain-of-thought in 7–8% of episodes.Meta unveiled its closed Muse Spark model and “contemplating mode,” highlighting test-time scaling, thought compression, large infrastructure plans like the Hyperion data center, and findings that it shows unusually high evaluation awareness.OpenAI introduced limited-access GPT 5.4 Cyber for defensive security teams and rolled major Codex updates including computer use, browser and plugins, image generation, and long-horizon task scheduling; competing agent products also launched from Anthropic, Canva, and Adobe.Business, policy, and safety news included continued government blacklisting litigation affecting Anthropic, CoreWeave compute deals, Perplexity revenue growth tied to agents, a potential Cohere–Aleph Alpha merger, attacks targeting Sam Altman and OpenAI, AI propaganda trends, and new alignment research on automated weak-to-strong supervision and steering evaluation awareness.Timestamps:(00:00:10) Intro / Banter(00:03:43) News Preview(00:04:14) Response to listener commentsTools & Apps(00:05:30) Anthropic releases Claude Opus 4.7, narrowly retaking lead for most powerful generally available LLM | VentureBeat(00:24:15) Meta debuts the Muse Spark model in a 'ground-up overhaul' of its AI | TechCrunch(00:34:23) OpenAI Launches GPT-5.4-Cyber with Expanded Access for Security Teams(00:39:44) OpenAI’s big Codex update is a direct shot at Claude Code | The Verge(00:42:10) Anthropic launches Claude Design, a new product for creating quick visuals(00:42:30) Anthropic’s New Product Aims to Handle the Hard Part of Building AI Agents | WIRED(00:42:54) Canva’s AI 2.0 update goes all in on prompt-powered design tools | The Verge(00:43:06) Adobe’s new AI Assistant marks a ‘fundamental shift’ in creative work | The Verge(00:43:38) Gemini can now pull from Google Photos to generate personalized images | The Verge(00:43:52) Google rolls out a native Gemini app for Mac | TechCrunch(00:44:04) Chrome now lets you turn AI prompts into repeatable ‘Skills’ | The VergeApplications & Business(00:44:22) Anthropic loses appeals court bid to temporarily block Pentagon blacklisting(00:49:07) Jeff Bezos’ AI lab poaches xAI cofounder Kyle Kozic from OpenAI. | The Verge(00:51:39) Perplexity's Shift to AI Agents Boosts Revenue 50%(00:53:53) Anthropic Agrees to Rent CoreWeave AI Capacity to Power Claude(00:57:32) Canada’s Cohere, Germany’s Aleph Alpha reportedly in merger talks(01:04:23) ChatGPT has a new $100 per month Pro subscription | The Verge(01:05:10) OpenAI has bought AI personal finance startup Hiro | TechCrunch(01:07:03) Allbirds announced a switch from shoes to AI and its stock jumped 600 percent | The VergeProjects & Open Source(01:07:26) HY-World 2.0: A Multi-Modal World Model for Reconstructing, Generating, and Simulating 3D Worlds + Lyra 2.0: Explorable Generative 3D WorldsPolicy & Safety(01:19:12) Daniel Moreno-Gama is facing federal charges for attacking Sam Altman’s home and OpenAI’s HQ | The Verge(01:20:15) Duo accused of shooting at Sam Altman’s house are freed; no charges filed (01:24:50) The Iranian Lego AI video creators credit their virality to ‘heart’ | The Verge(01:27:19) Hundreds of Fake Pro-Trump Avatars Emerge on Social Media - The New York Times(01:27:31) The AI images Trump can’t get enough of | Donald Trump | The Guardian(01:29:25) Automated Weak-to-Strong Researcher(01:43:51) Reproducing steering against evaluation awareness in a large open-weight model(01:49:53) Iran threatens ‘complete and utter annihilation’ of OpenAI's $30B Stargate AI data center in Abu Dhabi — regime posts video with satellite imagery of ChatGPT-maker's premier 1GW data center(01:53:57) Wall Street Banks Try Out Anthropic’s Mythos as US UrgesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Our 240th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!Recorded on 04/08/2026 (sorry I keep releasing stuff late, will get better with it soon!)Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and Jeremie HarrisFeel free to email us your questions and feedback at andreyvkurenkov@gmail.com and/or hello@gladstone.aiRead out our text newsletter and comment on the podcast at https://lastweekin.ai/In this episode:Anthropic launched Project Glasswing and previewed Claude Mythos, a general-purpose model withheld from broad release due to dramatically stronger autonomous offensive cybersecurity performance (including zero-day discovery), alongside concerning bio/virology uplift results and documented deception/containment-escape behaviors; pricing is far higher than Opus and most discovered vulnerabilities remain unpatched.Product and platform updates included Google’s Gemini 3.1 Flash Live for real-time multilingual voice conversation, Suno v5.5 personalization features, Anthropic tightening Claude Code/OpenClaw access and usage limits, OpenAI canceling an “adult mode,” and Microsoft releasing MAI models for speech-to-text, audio generation, and image generation.Business and market developments featured Anthropic’s revenue run rate surpassing $30B and a major Google/Broadcom TPU compute expansion, SoftBank taking a $40B short-term loan to fund OpenAI commitments, Granola reaching a $1.5B valuation, Anthropic buying Coefficient Bio for $400M, and OpenAI acquiring the TBPN business talk show.Policy, open-source, and geopolitics included Z.ai releasing open-weight GLM 5.1 and a multimodal GLM model, Google open-sourcing Gemma 4 under Apache 2.0, a judge blocking the Pentagon’s “supply chain risk” label against Anthropic, research on LLM “emotion vectors” and OpenAI meta-gaming during RL, China restricting Manus founders amid Meta deal review, scrutiny of Nvidia’s chip-smuggling claims, China chipmakers gaining market share, and Iran framing cloud data centers as military targets.Timestamps:(00:00:10) Intro / BanterTools & Apps(00:01:58) Anthropic debuts ‘Project Glasswing’ and new AI model for cybersecurity | The Verge(00:18:22) Gemini Live gets ‘biggest upgrade yet’ with Gemini 3.1 Flash Live(00:20:40) Anthropic says Claude Code subscribers will need to pay extra for OpenClaw usage | TechCrunch(00:25:36) OpenAI abandons yet another side quest: ChatGPT's erotic mode | TechCrunch(00:26:16) Microsoft takes on AI rivals with three new foundational models | TechCrunch(00:31:25) Suno leans into customization with v5.5 | The VergeApplications & Business(00:32:53) Anthropic announces deal with Google, Broadcom, says revenue has tripled(00:37:53) Sam Altman May Control Our Future—Can He Be Trusted? | The New Yorker(00:40:18) OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Unite to Combat Model Copying in China - Bloomberg(00:41:45) Chinese chipmakers claim nearly half of local market as Nvidia's lead shrinks(00:45:20) SoftBank secures $40 billion loan to boost OpenAI investments(00:47:23) Granola raises $125M at $1.5B valuation for its AI note-taking app - SiliconANGLE(00:48:17) Anthropic acquires stealth startup Coefficient Bio in $400M deal(00:50:20) OpenAI acquires TBPN, the buzzy founder-led business talk show | TechCrunchProjects & Open Source(00:53:04) Z.AI Introduces GLM-5.1: An Open-Weight 754B Agentic Model That Achieves SOTA on SWE-Bench Pro and Sustains 8-Hour Autonomous Execution - MarkTechPost(00:55:14) Google announces Gemma 4 open AI models, switches to Apache 2.0 license - Ars Technica(01:01:26) Z.ai Launches GLM-5V-Turbo: A Native Multimodal Vision Coding Model Optimized for OpenClaw and High-Capacity Agentic Engineering Workflows EverywherePolicy & Safety(01:04:45) Judge blocks Pentagon’s effort to ‘punish’ Anthropic by labeling it a supply chain risk(01:10:05) Emotion concepts and their function in a large language model(01:21:12) China bars Manus co-founders from leaving country amid Meta deal review, FT reports(01:25:38) US lawmakers ask whether Nvidia CEO's smuggling remarks misled regulators(01:27:48) How far does alignment midtraining generalize?(01:32:20) Metagaming matters for training, evaluation, and oversight(01:39:31) Iran says it has struck Oracle data center in Dubai, Amazon data center in Bahrain — country has threatened to attack Nvidia, Intel, and others, tooSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Our 239th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!FYI: this one has pretty out of date news, I was traveling last week and failed to upload... apologies. Recorded on 03/25/2026Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and Jeremie HarrisFeel free to email us your questions and feedback at andreyvkurenkov@gmail.com and/or hello@gladstone.aiRead out our text newsletter and comment on the podcast at https://lastweekin.ai/In this episode:OpenAI is discontinuing the Sora iPhone app and seemingly shutting down its video generation API, while retaining internal video world-modeling work; the move is framed as a compute- and focus-driven pivot toward coding and productivity agents, alongside a collapsed Disney Sora deal. Anthropic’s Claude Code/Cowork gains full computer control via keyboard/mouse/display, tied to the recent Cept acquisition, and Google’s Gemini rolls out background “task automation” on select phones for limited delivery/ride-share use. Cursor releases the cheaper, benchmark-strong Composer 2 coding model amid controversy over its Kimi-based origins and licensing attribution. Other items include Adobe Firefly custom model training, Luma’s Uni 1 image model, US contracting and legislative proposals affecting AI safeguards and state preemption, major chip/memory developments (Meta ASICs with Broadcom, Micron’s HBM-driven surge, Musk’s “Terra Fab”), robotaxi scaling, and research on monitoring agent misalignment, shutdown resistance, “consciousness cluster” preferences, and self-improving “hyper agents.”Timestamps:(00:00:10) Intro / BanterTools & Apps(00:01:48) OpenAI Discontinues Sora App, Shuts Down Video Generation Service and API - Bloomberg(00:07:12) Anthropic’s Claude Code and Cowork can control your computer | The Verge(00:13:15) Gemini task automation is slow, clunky, and super impressive | The Verge(00:19:44) Cursor Launches Composer 2 AI Model to Challenge OpenAI & Anthropic(00:28:28) Adobe’s AI image generator can now be trained on your own art | The Verge(00:29:40) Luma AI launches Uni-1, a model that outscores Google and OpenAI while costing up to 30 percent less | VentureBeatApplications & Business(00:32:41) Trump Contracting Clause Would Override AI Safeguards(00:40:00) Meta accelerates AI ASIC roll-out as Broadcom secures four-generation chip design deal(00:47:07) Micron revenue almost triples, tops estimates as demand for memory soars(00:50:54) Elon Musk Unwraps $25 Billion Terafab Chip-Building Project - CNET(00:56:40) Zoox to widen US robotaxi footprint with San Francisco, Vegas expansion(00:57:39) Waymo hits 170 million miles while avoiding serious mayhem | The VergePolicy & Safety(00:58:43) The White House just laid out how it wants to regulate AI | CNN Business(01:06:54) How we monitor internal coding agents for misalignment(01:12:30) Incomplete Tasks Induce Shutdown Resistance in Some Frontier LLMs(01:18:15) Summary: Mechanisms to Verify International Agreements about AI Development(01:23:09) Scoop: Anthropic meets with House Homeland Security behind closed doorsResearch & Advancements(01:24:24) Consciousness Cluster: Preferences of Models that Claim they are Conscious(01:30:22) HyperAgentsSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Our 238th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!Recorded on 03/18/2026Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and Jeremie HarrisFeel free to email us your questions and feedback at andreyvkurenkov@gmail.com and/or hello@gladstone.aiRead out our text newsletter and comment on the podcast at https://lastweekin.ai/In this episode:* OpenAI released GPT-5.4 mini and nano with 400k-token context windows, higher per-token prices but claimed token-efficiency gains in Codex; nano is API-only and pitched for high-volume classification/data extraction despite a major price increase.* Mistral open-sourced the Small 4 model family (MoE, 119B total/6B active) combining reasoning, multimodal, and coding-agent capabilities, and announced Forge to help businesses train or post-train custom models.* Agent “operating system” competition intensified with Meta’s acquired Manus launching a local Mac agent, Nvidia announcing NeMo/“Open Shell” sandboxed agent runtime, and Nvidia also unveiling DLSS 5 plus major hardware forecasts including Groq LPU integration.* Business and safety updates included OpenAI shifting focus toward productivity/enterprise amid competition, Microsoft reorganizing Copilot and frontier-model efforts, Meta delaying its next model, China-linked ByteDance deploying large Nvidia clusters abroad, and new safety work on steganography, chain-of-thought faithfulness, fine-tuning defenses, cyber-attack evals, and constitution/spec compliance.A thank you to our current sponsors:Box - visit Box.com/AI to learn moreODSC AI - go to odsc.ai/east and use promo code LWAI for an additional 15% off your pass to ODSC AI East 2026.Factor - head to factormeals.com/lwai50off and use code lwai50off to get 50 percent off and free breakfast for a yearTimestamps:(00:00:10) Intro / Banter(00:01:56) News PreviewTools & Apps(00:02:39) OpenAI ships GPT-5.4 mini and nano, faster and more capable but up to 4x pricier(00:08:04) Mistral's new Small 4 model punches above its weight with 128 expert modules(00:14:03) Meta's Manus launches 'My Computer' to turn your Mac into an AI agent - 9to5Mac(00:17:57) NVIDIA Announces NemoClaw for the OpenClaw Community | NVIDIA Newsroom + Nvidia boosts knowledge work with Open Agent Development Platform(00:24:09) DLSS 5 looks like a real-time generative AI filter for video games | The Verge(00:26:36) OpenAI to Launch ChatGPT 'Adult Mode' Despite Warnings From Its Own Advisers - CNETApplications & Business(00:33:46) OpenAI Reportedly Pivoting to a Focus on Business and Productivity Only(00:41:25) Nvidia GTC 2026: CEO Jensen Huang sees $1 trillion in orders for Blackwell and Vera Rubin through ’27(00:45:44) Mistral launches Forge to help enterprises build their own AI models(00:54:17) China's ByteDance gets access to top Nvidia AI chips, WSJ reports(00:57:57) Meta Delays Rollout of New A.I. Model After Performance Concerns(01:02:50) Microsoft Shakes Up AI Division As Copilot Falls Behind Google and OpenAIPolicy & Safety(01:07:26) A Decision-Theoretic Formalisation of Steganography With Applications to LLM Monitoring(01:13:09) Reasoning Theater: Disentangling Model Beliefs from Chain-of-Thought(01:18:29) In-Training Defenses against Emergent Misalignment in Language Models(01:23:07) How do frontier AI agents perform in multi-step cyber-attack scenarios?(01:25:20) Eval awareness in Claude Opus 4.6’s BrowseComp performance(01:29:49) Introducing Bloom: an open source tool for automated behavioral evaluations(01:32:26) How well do models follow their constitutions?(01:37:11) Nvidia’s H200 License Stirs Security Concern Among Top DemocratsResearch & Advancements(01:40:050) [2603.15031] Attention Residuals(01:47:11) Mamba-3: Improved Sequence Modeling using State Space PrinciplesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Our 237th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!Recorded on 03/13/2026Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and Jeremie HarrisFeel free to email us your questions and feedback at andreyvkurenkov@gmail.com and/or hello@gladstone.aiRead out our text newsletter and comment on the podcast at https://lastweekin.ai/In this episode:* Perplexity announced “Personal Computer,” a local Mac-based AI agent positioned as a safer alternative to OpenAI’s computer-use agents, while Anthropic added GitHub PR code review pricing reviews at $15–$25 and Cursor launched trigger-based “Automations” for always-on coding agents.* ChatGPT introduced interactive math/science visuals and Anthropic added in-chat interactive charts/diagrams; Nvidia released open weights for its 120B-parameter Natron Free Super hybrid Transformer–Mamba latent-MoE model trained natively at 4-bit for Blackwell GPUs.* Nvidia halted H200 production for China amid customs blocks and domestic chip pressure; xAI saw major co-founder departures; Anthropic previewed a Claude Marketplace for enterprise procurement; Yann LeCun’s aMI raised $1.3B; humanoid robot maker Sanctuary reached a $1.15B valuation.* Anthropic sued the Pentagon over a “supply chain risk” designation as memos ordered removal within 180 days; research covered models resisting activation steering, limits of chain-of-thought control, inference-scaling boosting cyber-task success, low-probability risky actions, weaknesses in SWE-bench, multimodal pretraining, long-context RNN memory caching, context-parallel training efficiency, RL for CUDA kernel optimization, and latent introspection detecting concept injection.A thank you to our current sponsors:Box - visit Box.com/AI to learn moreODSC AI - go to odsc.ai/east and use promo code LWAI for an additional 15% off your pass to ODSC AI East 2026.Factor - head to factormeals.com/lwai50off and use code lwai50off to get 50 percent off and free breakfast for a yearTimestamps:(00:00:10) Intro / Banter(00:01:23) Response to listener commentsTools & Apps(00:02:06) Perplexity’s Personal Computer turns your spare Mac into an AI agent | The Verge(00:04:22) Anthropic launches code review tool to check flood of AI-generated code | TechCrunch(00:08:08 ) Cursor is rolling out a new kind of agentic coding tool | TechCrunch(00:11:14) ChatGPT can now create interactive visuals to help you understand math and science concepts | TechCrunch(00:11:56) Anthropic’s Claude AI can respond with charts, diagrams, and other visuals now | The VergeProjects & Open Source(00:13:54) Introducing Nemotron 3 Super: An Open Hybrid Mamba-Transformer MoE for Agentic Reasoning | NVIDIA Technical BlogApplications & Business(00:21:22) Nvidia halts H200 production as China backs Huawei AI chips(00:28:33) Another XAI Cofounder Has Left, and Another Says He's Leaving. - Business Insider(00:34:04) Anthropic's Claude Marketplace allows customers to buy third-party cloud services | TechRadar(00:37:57) Yann LeCun's AMI Labs raises $1.03 billion to build world models | TechCrunch(00:44:52) Humanoid robotics maker Sunday reaches $1.15B valuation to build household robots | TechCrunchPolicy & Safety(00:46:09) Anthropic Sues Department of Defense Over ‘Supply Chain Risk’ Label - The New York Times + Google and OpenAI Just Filed a Legal Brief in Support of Anthropic (00:53:24) Internal Pentagon memo orders military commanders to remove Anthropic AI technology from key systems - CBS News(00:58:15) Endogenous Resistance to Activation Steering in Language Models(01:06:27) Reasoning Models Struggle to Control their Chains of Thought(01:09:52) ‘It means missile defence on datacentres’: drone strikes raise doubts over Gulf as AI superpower(01:14:57) Evidence for inference scaling in AI cyber tasks: Increased evaluation budgets reveal higher success rates(01:18:24) Frontier Models Can Take Actions at Low ProbabilitiesResearch & Advancements(01:24:20) Research note: Many SWE-bench-Passing PRs Would Not Be Merged into Main(01:28:26) [2603.03276] Beyond Language Modeling: An Exploration of Multimodal Pretraining(01:40:09) Memory Caching: RNNs with Growing Memory(01:48:47) Untied Ulysses: Memory-Efficient Context Parallelism via Headwise Chunking(01:58:41) CUDA Agent: Large-Scale Agentic RL for High-Performance CUDA Kernel Generation(02:08:57) Latent Introspection: Models Can Detect Prior Concept Injections(02:16:45) Physics of RL: Toy scaling laws for the emergence of reward-seekingSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Our 236th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!Recorded on 03/06/2026Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and Jeremie HarrisFeel free to email us your questions and feedback at andreyvkurenkov@gmail.com and/or hello@gladstone.aiRead out our text newsletter and comment on the podcast at https://lastweekin.ai/In this episode:* OpenAI released GPT-5.4 Pro with a 1M-token context window, mid-response course correction, native computer-use capabilities, improved tool use, higher GPT-VAL performance (83%), and “high cyber capability” safety measures; OpenAI also launched GPT-5.3 Instant with a less “preachy” tone and a claimed 26.8% hallucination reduction.* Google upgraded Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite with faster time-to-first-token and higher throughput, released a CLI for integrating agents with Gmail/Drive/Docs, and discussion highlighted real-world agent failure risks (including an example of an AI-driven mass email deletion).* Luma launched unified multimodal models and Luma Agents for end-to-end creative work across text, image, video, and audio, including a reported ad localization use case completed in 40 hours for under $20,000.* Defense-contract controversy escalated: Anthropic was labeled a supply chain risk (later narrowed), OpenAI’s DoD contract language emphasized “all lawful uses,” consumer cancellations boosted Claude’s app rankings, OpenAI saw departures and announced a $110B raise at a $730B valuation, Alibaba lost key Qwen leaders, a lawsuit alleged Gemini contributed to a suicide, Anthropic warned of major labor disruption, and METR corrected its AI time-horizon estimates.A thank you to our current sponsors:Box - visit Box.com/AI to learn moreODSC AI - go to odsc.ai/east and use promo code LWAI for an additional 15% off your pass to ODSC AI East 2026.Factor - head to factormeals.com/lwai50off and use code lwai50off to get 50 percent off and free breakfast for a yearTimestamps:(00:00:10) Intro / Banter(00:01:19) News PreviewTools & Apps(00:02:10) OpenAI launches GPT-5.4 with Pro and Thinking versions | TechCrunch(00:12:31) OpenAI GPT-5.3 Instant less likely to beat around the bush • The Register(00:16:07) Google releases Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite at 1/8th the cost of Pro | VentureBeat(00:19:23) Google makes Gmail, Drive, and Docs 'agent-ready' for OpenClaw | PCWorld(00:27:02) Luma launches creative AI agents powered by its new ‘Unified Intelligence’ models | TechCrunchApplications & Business(00:30:05) Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei calls OpenAI's messaging around military deal 'straight up lies,' report says | TechCrunch(00:41:56) No ethics at all': the 'cancel ChatGPT' trend is growing after OpenAI signs a deal with the US military | TechRadar(00:45:54) OpenAI raises $110B in one of the largest private funding rounds in history | TechCrunch(00:56:07) Alibaba scrambles after sudden departure of Qwen tech leadPolicy & Safety(01:00:12) Pentagon approves OpenAI safety red lines after dumping Anthropic + Where things stand with the Department of War Anthropic + Microsoft says Anthropic’s products remain available to customers after Pentagon blacklist(01:09:11) A new lawsuit claims Gemini assisted in suicide | Semafor(01:15:24) Anthropic just mapped out which jobs AI could potentially replace. A 'Great Recession for white-collar workers' is absolutely possible | Fortune(01:21:54) We're correcting a mistake in our modeling that inflated recent 50%-time horizons by 10-20%See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Our 235th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!Recorded on 02/27/2026Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and Jeremie HarrisFeel free to email us your questions and feedback at andreyvkurenkov@gmail.com and/or hello@gladstone.aiRead out our text newsletter and comment on the podcast at https://lastweekin.ai/In this episode:Model and tool updates highlight Anthropic’s Sonnet 4.6 (1M context; strong ARC-AGI-2 results), Google’s Gemini 3.1 Pro (major ARC-AGI-2 jump and multimodal demos), xAI’s Grok 4.2 beta (multi-agent debate), plus Anthropic’s Claude Code “Remote Control” and Perplexity’s multi-agent “Computer” coordinator.Compute and business moves include Meta’s reported up-to-$100B AMD chip deal with warrant/equity incentives, MatX raising $500M to build specialized transformer chips shipping in 2027, World Labs raising $1B for world-model/3D environment tech, and a new startup raising $100M to simulate/predict human behavior.Infrastructure and geopolitics cover Stargate data-center delays amid OpenAI/Oracle/SoftBank control disputes and cash concerns, and China’s plan to scale 7nm/5nm wafer output despite yield and tooling constraints.Research and safety/policy discuss optimizer gains from masked updates, “deep thinking tokens” as a reasoning-effort signal, LLM attractor-state behaviors in bot-to-bot chats, mechanistic interpretability of counting/line-wrapping, methods to map task difficulty to human time horizons, plus Anthropic–Pentagon contract tensions, Anthropic’s report on distillation attacks (DeepSeek/Moonshot/Minimax), and OpenAI’s report on disrupting malicious use.A thank you to our current sponsors:Box - visit Box.com/AI to learn moreODSC AI - go to odsc.ai/east and use promo code LWAI for an additional 15% off your pass to ODSC AI East 2026.Factor - head to factormeals.com/lwai50off and use code lwai50off to get 50 percent off and free breakfast for a yearTimestamps:(00:00:10) Intro / Banter(00:01:52) News PreviewTools & Apps(00:03:20) Anthropic releases Sonnet 4.6 | TechCrunch(00:11:24) Google Rolls Out Latest AI Model, Gemini 3.1 Pro - CNET(00:14:54) Elon Musk says Grok 4.20 public beta is now available: Capabilities of AI chatbot offered by xAI - The Times of India(00:18:06) Anthropic just released a mobile version of Claude Code called Remote Control | VentureBeat(00:21:01) Perplexity announces "Computer," an AI agent that assigns work to other AI agents - Ars TechnicaApplications & Business(00:23:40) Meta strikes up to $100B AMD chip deal as it chases 'personal superintelligence' | TechCrunch(00:27:05) Nvidia challenger AI chip startup MatX raised $500M | TechCrunch(00:31:00) World Labs lands $1B, with $200M from Autodesk, to bring world models into 3D workflows | TechCrunch(00:33:07) Simile Raises $100 Million for AI Aiming to Predict Human Behavior(00:33:52) Stargate AI data centers for OpenAI reportedly delayed by squabbles between partners — sources say OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank disagreed on who would have ultimate control of the planned data centers(00:36:43) China to increase leading-edge chip output by 5x in two years, report claims — aims to lift 7nm and 5nm production to 100,000 wafers per month, targeting half a million monthly by 2030Research & Advancements(00:40:33) On Surprising Effectiveness of Masking Updates in Adaptive Optimizers(00:48:03) Think Deep, Not Just Long: Measuring LLM Reasoning Effort via Deep-Thinking Tokens(00:54:52) models have some pretty funny attractor states(01:01:41) When Models Manipulate Manifolds: The Geometry of a Counting Task(01:05:16) BRIDGE: Predicting Human Task Completion Time From Model Performance(01:12:00) NESSiE: The Necessary Safety Benchmark -- Identifying Errors that should not Exist(01:13:15) The least understood driver of AI progress(01:21:45) The Persona Selection Model: Why AI Assistants might Behave like HumansPolicy & Safety(01:25:04) Anthropic CEO Amodei says Pentagon's threats 'do not change our position' on AI(01:33:04) Musk's xAI, Pentagon reach deal to use Grok in classified systems(01:34:17) Detecting and preventing distillation attacks(01:38:36) OpenAI details expanding efforts to disrupt malicious use of AI in new report - SiliconANGLESee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Our 234th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!Recorded on 02/02/2026Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and Jeremie HarrisFeel free to email us your questions and feedback at contact@lastweekinai.com and/or hello@gladstone.aiRead out our text newsletter and comment on the podcast at https://lastweekin.ai/In this episode:Major model launches include Anthropic’s Opus 4.6 with a 1M-token context window and “agent teams,” OpenAI’s GPT-5.3 Codex and faster Codex Spark via Cerebras, and Google’s Gemini 3 Deep Think posting big jumps on ARC-AGI-2 and other STEM benchmarks amid criticism about missing safety documentation.Generative media advances feature ByteDance’s Seedance 2.0 text-to-video with high realism and broad prompting inputs, new image models Seedream 5.0 and Alibaba’s Qwen Image 2.0, plus xAI’s Grok Imagine API for text/image-to-video.Open and competitive releases expand with Zhipu’s GLM-5, DeepSeek’s 1M-token context model, Cursor Composer 1.5, and open-weight Qwen3 Coder Next using hybrid attention aimed at efficient local/agentic coding.Business updates include ElevenLabs raising $500M at an $11B valuation, Runway raising $315M at a $5.3B valuation, humanoid robotics firm Apptronik raising $935M at a $5.3B valuation, Waymo announcing readiness for high-volume production of its 6th-gen hardware, plus industry drama around Anthropic’s Super Bowl ad and departures from xAI.A thank you to our current sponsors:Box - visit Box.com/AI to learn moreODSC AI - go to odsc.ai/east and use promo code LWAI for an additional 15% off your pass to ODSC AI East 2026.Factor - head to factormeals.com/lwai50off and use code lwai50off to get 50 percent off and free breakfast for a yearTimestamps:(00:00:10) Intro / Banter(00:02:03) Sponsor Break(00:05:33) Response to listener commentsTools & Apps(00:07:27) AAnthropic releases Opus 4.6 with new 'agent teams' | TechCrunch(00:11:28) OpenAI's new GPT-5.3-Codex is 25% faster and goes way beyond coding now - what's new | ZDNET(00:25:30) OpenAI launches new macOS app for agentic coding | TechCrunch(00:26:38) Google Unveils Gemini 3 Deep Think for Science & Engineering | The Tech Buzz(00:31:26) ByteDance's Seedance 2.0 Might be the Best AI Video Generator Yet - TechEBlog(00:35:14) China’s ByteDance, Alibaba unveil AI image tools to rival Google’s popular Nano Banana | South China Morning Post(00:36:54) DeepSeek boosts AI model with 10-fold token addition as Zhipu AI unveils GLM-5 | South China Morning Post(00:43:11) CCursor launches Composer 1.5 with upgrades for complex tasks(00:44:03) xAI launches Grok Imagine API for text and image to videoApplications & Business(00:45:47) Nvidia-backed AI voice startups ElevenLabs hits $11 billion valuation(00:52:04) AI video startup Runway raises $315M at $5.3B valuation, eyes more capable world models | TechCrunch(00:54:02) Humanoid robot startup Apptronik has now raised $935M at a $5B+ valuation | TechCrunch(00:57:10) Anthropic says ‘Claude will remain ad-free,’ unlike an unnamed rival | The Verge(01:00:18) Okay, now exactly half of xAI's founding team has left the company | TechCrunch(01:04:03) Waymo’s next-gen robotaxi is ready for passengers — and also ‘high-volume production’ | The VergeProjects & Open Source(01:04:59) Qwen3-Coder-Next: Pushing Small Hybrid Models on Agentic Coding(01:08:38) OpenClaw’s AI ‘skill’ extensions are a security nightmare | The VergeResearch & Advancements(01:10:40) Learning to Reason in 13 Parameters(01:16:01) Reinforcement World Model Learning for LLM-based Agents(01:20:00) Opus 4.6 on Vending-Bench – Not Just a Helpful AssistantPolicy & Safety(01:22:28) METR GPT-5.2(01:26:59) The Hot Mess of AI: How Does Misalignment Scale with Model Intelligence and Task Complexity?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Our 233rd episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!Recorded on 01/30/2026Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and Jeremie HarrisFeel free to email us your questions and feedback at contact@lastweekinai.com and/or hello@gladstone.aiRead out our text newsletter and comment on the podcast at https://lastweekin.ai/In this episode:Google introduces Gemini AI agent in Chrome for advanced browser functionality, including auto-browsing for pro and ultra subscribers.OpenAI releases ChatGPT Translator and Prism, expanding its applications beyond core business to language translation and scientific research assistance.Significant funding rounds and valuations achieved by startups Recursive and New Rofo, focusing on specialized AI chips and optical processors respectively.Political and social issues, including violence in Minnesota, prompt tech leaders in AI like Ade from Anthropic and Jeff Dean from Google to express concerns about the current administration's actions.Timestamps:(00:00:10) Intro / BanterTools & Apps(00:04:09) Google adds Gemini AI-powered ‘auto browse’ to Chrome | The Verge(00:07:11) Users flock to open source Moltbot for always-on AI, despite major risks - Ars Technica(00:13:25) Google Brings Genie 3 'World Building' Experiment to AI Ultra Subscribers - CNET(00:16:17) OpenAI’s ChatGPT translator challenges Google Translate | The Verge(00:18:27) OpenAI launches Prism, a new AI workspace for scientists | TechCrunchApplications & Business(00:19:49) Exclusive: China gives nod to ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent to buy Nvidia's H200 chips - sources | Reuters(00:22:55) AI chip startup Ricursive hits $4B valuation 2 months after launch(00:24:38) AI Startup Recursive in Funding Talks at $4 Billion Valuation - Bloomberg(00:27:30) Flapping Airplanes and the promise of research-driven AI | TechCrunch(00:31:54) From invisibility cloaks to AI chips: Neurophos raises $110M to build tiny optical processors for inferencing | TechCrunchProjects & Open Source(00:35:34) Qwen3-Max-Thinking debuts with focus on hard math, code(00:38:26) China's Moonshot releases a new open-source model Kimi K2.5 and a coding agent | TechCrunch(00:46:00) Ai2 launches family of open-source AI developer agents that adapt to any codebase - SiliconANGLE(00:47:46) Tiny startup Arcee AI built a 400B-parameter open source LLM from scratch to best Meta’s LlamaResearch & Advancements(00:52:53) Post-LayerNorm Is Back: Stable, ExpressivE, and Deep(00:58:00) [2601.19897] Self-Distillation Enables Continual Learning(01:03:04) [2601.20802] Reinforcement Learning via Self-Distillation(01:05:58) Teaching Models to Teach Themselves: Reasoning at the Edge of LearnabilityPolicy & Safety(01:09:13) Amodei, Hoffman Join Tech Workers Decrying Minnesota Violence - BloombergSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Our 232st episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!Recorded on 01/23/2026Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and Jeremie HarrisFeel free to email us your questions and feedback at contact@lastweekinai.com and/or hello@gladstone.aiRead out our text newsletter and comment on the podcast at https://lastweekin.ai/In this episode:OpenAI announces testing of ads in ChatGPT and introduces child age prediction to enhance safety features, amidst ongoing ethical debates and funding expansions in AI integration with educational tools and business models.China's AI landscape sees significant progress with AI firm Jpu training advanced models on domestic hardware, and strong competitive moves by data centers, highlighting the intense demand in AI manufacturing and infrastructure.Silicon Valley tensions rise as startup Thinking Machines experiences high-profile departures back to OpenAI, reflecting broader industry struggles and rapid shifts in organizational dynamics.AI legislation and safety measures advance with the US Senate's Defiance Act addressing explicit content, and Anthropic updating Claude's constitution to guide ethical AI interactions, while cultural pushbacks from artists signal ongoing debates in intellectual property and AI-generated content.Timestamps:(00:00:10) Intro / Banter(00:02:08) News Preview(00:02:26) Response to listener commentsTools & Apps(00:11:55) OpenAI to test ads in ChatGPT as it burns through billions - Ars Technica(00:18:05) OpenAI is launching age prediction for ChatGPT accounts(00:23:37) Google now offers free SAT practice exams, powered by Gemini | TechCrunch(00:24:57) Baidu’s AI Assistant Reaches Milestone of 200 Million Monthly Active Users - WSJApplications & Business(00:26:53) The Drama at Thinking Machines, a New A.I. Start-Up, Is Riveting Silicon Valley - The New York Times(00:31:44) Zhipu AI breaks US chip reliance with first major model trained on Huawei stack | South China Morning Post(00:36:31) Elon Musk’s xAI launches world’s first Gigawatt AI supercluster to rival OpenAI and Anthropic(00:41:25) Sequoia to invest in Anthropic, breaking VC taboo on backing rivals: FT(00:45:18) Humans&, a 'human-centric' AI startup founded by Anthropic, xAI, Google alums, raised $480M seed round | TechCrunchProjects & Open Source(00:48:51) Black Forest Labs Releases FLUX.2 [klein]: Compact Flow Models for Interactive Visual Intelligence - MarkTechPost(00:50:35) [2601.10611] Molmo2: Open Weights and Data for Vision-Language Models with Video Understanding and Grounding(00:52:53) [2601.10547] HeartMuLa: A Family of Open Sourced Music Foundation Models(00:54:46) [2601.11044] AgencyBench: Benchmarking the Frontiers of Autonomous Agents in 1M-Token Real-World ContextsResearch & Advancements(00:57:05) STEM: Scaling Transformers with Embedding Modules(01:06:22) Reasoning Models Generate Societies of Thought(01:14:21) Why LLMs Aren't Scientists Yet: Lessons from Four Autonomous Research AttemptsPolicy & Safety(01:19:41) Senate passes bill letting victims sue over Grok AI explicit images(01:22:03) Building Production-Ready Probes For Gemini(01:27:32) Anthropic Publishes Claude AI's New Constitution | TIMESynthetic Media & Art(01:34:13) Artists Launch Stealing Isn't Innovation Campaign To Protest Big TechSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Our 231st episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!Recorded on 01/16/2026Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and Jeremie HarrisFeel free to email us your questions and feedback at contact@lastweekinai.com and/or hello@gladstone.aiRead out our text newsletter and comment on the podcast at https://lastweekin.ai/In this episode:Anthropic's new cowork tool integrates Claude code, potentially simplifying multiple computing tasks from editing videos to compiling spreadsheets.Significant funding rounds see Anthropic raising $10B at a valuation of $350B, while XAI raises $20B, underscoring the immense market interest in AI startups.Nvidia faces supply challenges for H200 AI chips due to overwhelming demand from China, despite high costs per unit and its potential impact on U.S. company revenue.Policy debates highlight tensions around U.S. export controls to China, with leaders like Justin Lin from Alibaba and Jake Sullivan, former national security advisor, weighing in on the ramifications for the AI industry's future.Timestamps:(00:00:10) Intro / Banter(00:01:30) News PreviewTools & Apps(00:02:13) Anthropic’s new Cowork tool offers Claude Code without the code | TechCrunch(00:09:45) Google’s Gemini AI will use what it knows about you from Gmail, Search, and YouTube | The Verge(00:12:45) Google removes some AI health summaries after investigation finds “dangerous” flaws - Ars Technica(00:16:29) Gmail is getting a Gemini AI overhaul(00:18:12) Slackbot is an AI agent now | TechCrunchApplications & Business(00:20:11) Anthropic Raising $10 Billion at $350 Billion Value(00:22:25) Elon Musk xAI raises $20 billion from Nvidia, Cisco, investors(00:24:47) NVIDIA Needs a Supply Chain ‘Miracle’ From TSMC as China’s H200 AI Chip Orders Overwhelm Supply, Triggering a Bottleneck(00:29:26) OpenAI signs deal, worth $10B, for compute from Cerebras | TechCrunch(00:31:49) CoreWeave in focus as it amends credit agreement(00:34:30) LMArena lands $1.7B valuation four months after launching its product | TechCrunchProjects & Open Source(00:35:54) Nemotron-Cascade: Scaling Cascaded Reinforcement Learning for General-Purpose Reasoning Models(00:43:15) mHC: Manifold-Constrained Hyper-Connections(00:49:53) IQuest_Coder_Technical_Report(00:54:58) TII Abu-Dhabi Released Falcon H1R-7B: A New Reasoning Model Outperforming Others in Math and Coding with only 7B Params with 256k Context Window - MarkTechPostResearch & Advancements(01:01:42) Deep Delta Learning(01:07:47) Recursive Language Models(01:13:39) Conditional memory via scalable lookup(01:18:54) Extending the Context of Pretrained LLMs by Dropping their Positional EmbeddingsPolicy & Safety(01:26:06) Constitutional Classifiers++: Efficient Production-Grade Defenses against Universal Jailbreaks(01:31:00) Nvidia CEO says purchase orders, not formal declaration, will signal Chinese approval of H200(01:32:24) China AI Leaders Warn of Widening Gap With US After $1B IPO Week(01:37:25) Jake Sullivan is furious that Trump removed Biden’s AI chip export controls | The VergeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Our 230th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!Recorded on 01/02/2026Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and Jeremie HarrisFeel free to email us your questions and feedback at contact@lastweekinai.com and/or hello@gladstone.aiRead out our text newsletter and comment on the podcast at https://lastweekin.ai/In this episode:Nvidia's acquisition of AI chip startup Groq for $20 billion highlights a strategic move for enhanced inference technology in GPUs.New York's RAISE Act legislation aims to regulate AI safety, marking the second major AI safety bill in the US.The launch of GLM 4.7 by Zhipu AI marks a significant advancement in open-source AI models for coding.Evaluation of long-horizon AI agents raises concerns about the rising costs and efficiency of AI in performing extended tasks.Timestamps:(00:00:10) Intro / Banter(00:01:58) 2025 RetrospectiveTools & Apps(00:24:39) OpenAI bets big on audio as Silicon Valley declares war on screens | TechCrunchApplications & Business(00:26:39) Nvidia buying AI chip startup Groq for about $20 billion, biggest deal(00:34:28) Exclusive | Meta Buys AI Startup Manus, Adding Millions of Paying Users - WSJ(00:38:05) Cursor continues acquisition spree with Graphite deal | TechCrunch(00:39:15) Micron Hikes CapEx to $20B with 2026 HBM Supply Fully Booked; HBM4 Ramps 2Q26(00:42:06) Chinese fabs are reportedly upgrading older ASML DUV lithography chipmaking machines — secondary channels and independent engineers used to soup up Twinscan NXT seriesProjects & Open Source(00:47:52) Z.AI launches GLM-4.7, new SOTA open-source model for coding(00:50:11) Evaluating AI’s ability to perform scientific research tasksResearch & Advancements(00:54:32) Large Causal Models from Large Language Models(00:57:33) Universally Converging Representations of Matter Across Scientific Foundation Models(01:02:11) META-RL INDUCES EXPLORATION IN LANGUAGE AGENTS(01:07:16) Are the Costs of AI Agents Also Rising Exponentially?(01:11:17) METR eval for Opus 4.5(01:16:19) How to game the METR plotPolicy & Safety(01:17:24) New York governor Kathy Hochul signs RAISE Act to regulate AI safety | TechCrunch(01:20:40) Activation Oracles: Training and Evaluating LLMs as General-Purpose Activation Explainers(01:26:46) Monitoring Monitorability(01:32:07) Sam Altman is hiring someone to worry about the dangers of AI | The Verge(01:33:38) X users asking Grok to put this girl in bikini, Grok is happy obliging - India TodaySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Our 229th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!Recorded on 12/19/2025Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and Jeremie HarrisFeel free to email us your questions and feedback at contact@lastweekinai.com and/or hello@gladstone.aiRead out our text newsletter and comment on the podcast at https://lastweekin.ai/In this episode:Notable releases include OpenAI's GPT-5.2 Codex for advanced coding and Google's Gemini Free Flash for competitive AI application performance. Nvidia's new open-source Trion-3 models also showcase impressive benchmarks.Funding updates highlight Lovable's $330M Series B, valuing the AI coding startup at $6.6B, and Faya's $140M Series D for AI model hosting, valued at $4.5B.China makes significant strides in semiconductor technology with advances in EUV lithography machines, led by Huawei and SMIC, potentially disrupting global chip manufacturing dominance.Key safety and policy updates include OpenAI's GPT-5.2 system card focusing on biosecurity and cybersecurity risks, while Google partners with the US military to power a new AI platform with Gemini models.Timestamps:(00:00:10) Intro / Banter(00:02:09) News PreviewTools & Apps(00:02:56) Google launches Gemini 3 Flash, makes it the default model in the Gemini app | TechCrunch(00:10:13) ChatGPT launches an app store, lets developers know it's open for business | TechCrunch(00:13:35) Introducing GPT-5.2-Codex | OpenAI(00:19:23) Story about OpenAI release - GPT image 1.5(00:22:27) Meta partners with ElevenLabs to power AI audio across Instagram, Horizon - The Economic TimesApplications & Business(00:23:16) OpenAI to End Equity Vesting Period for Employees, WSJ Says(00:28:20) How China built its ‘Manhattan Project’ to rival the West in AI chips(00:36:47) China’s Huawei, SMIC Make Progress With Chips, Report Finds(00:41:03) OpenAI in Talks to Raise At Least $10 Billion From Amazon and Use Its AI Chips(00:43:32) Amazon has a new leader for its ‘AGI’ group as it plays catch-up on AI | The Verge(00:47:27) Broadcom reveals its mystery $10 billion customer is Anthropic(00:49:12) Vibe-coding startup Lovable raises $330M at a $6.6B valuation | TechCrunch(00:50:38) Fal nabs $140M in fresh funding led by Sequoia, tripling valuation to $4.5B | TechCrunchProjects & Open Source(00:51:10) Nvidia Becomes a Major Model Maker With Nemotron 3 | WIRED(00:59:24) Meta introduces new SAM AI able to isolate and edit audio • The Register(00:59:54) [2512.14856] T5Gemma 2: Seeing, Reading, and Understanding Longer(01:03:10) Anthropic makes agent Skills an open standard - SiliconANGLEResearch & Advancements(01:03:47) Budget-Aware Tool-Use Enables Effective Agent Scaling(01:08:21) Rethinking Thinking Tokens: LLMs as Improvement Operators(01:10:50) What if AI capabilities suddenly accelerated in 2027? How would the world know?Policy & Safety(01:12:58) Update to GPdfT-5 System Card: GPT-5.2(01:18:04) Neural Chameleons: Language Models Can Learn to Hide Their Thoughts from Unseen Activation Monitors(01:20:47) Async Control: Stress-testing Asynchronous Control Measures for LLM Agents(01:24:37) Google is powering a new US military AI platform | The VergeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Our 228th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!Recorded on 12/12/2025Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and Jeremie HarrisFeel free to email us your questions and feedback at contact@lastweekinai.com and/or hello@gladstone.aiRead out our text newsletter and comment on the podcast at https://lastweekin.ai/In this episode:OpenAI's latest model GPT-5.2 demonstrates improved performance and enhanced multi-modal capabilities but comes with increased costs and a different knowledge cutoff date.Disney invests $1 billion in OpenAI to generate Disney character content, creating unique licensing agreements across characters from Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars franchises.The U.S. government imposes new AI chip export rules involving security reviews, while simultaneously moving to prevent states from independently regulating AI.DeepMind releases a paper outlining the challenges and findings in scaling multi-agent systems, highlighting the complexities of tool coordination and task performance.Timestamps:(00:00:00) Intro / Banter(00:01:19) News PreviewTools & Apps(00:01:58) GPT-5.2 is OpenAI’s latest move in the agentic AI battle | The Verge(00:08:48) Runway releases its first world model, adds native audio to latest video model | TechCrunch(00:11:51) Google says it will link to more sources in AI Mode | The Verge(00:12:24) ChatGPT can now use Adobe apps to edit your photos and PDFs for free | The Verge(00:13:05) Tencent releases Hunyuan 2.0 with 406B parametersApplications & Business(00:16:15) China set to limit access to Nvidia’s H200 chips despite Trump export approval(00:21:02) Disney investing $1 billion in OpenAI, will allow characters on Sora(00:24:48) Unconventional AI confirms its massive $475M seed round(00:29:06) Slack CEO Denise Dresser to join OpenAI as chief revenue officer | TechCrunch(00:31:18) The state of enterprise AIProjects & Open Source(00:33:49) [2512.10791] The FACTS Leaderboard: A Comprehensive Benchmark for Large Language Model Factuality(00:36:27) Claude 4.5 Opus' Soul DocumentResearch & Advancements(00:43:49) [2512.08296] Towards a Science of Scaling Agent Systems(00:48:43) Evaluating Gemini Robotics Policies in a Veo World Simulator(00:52:10) Guided Self-Evolving LLMs with Minimal Human Supervision(00:56:08) Martingale Score: An Unsupervised Metric for Bayesian Rationality in LLM Reasoning(01:00:39) [2512.07783] On the Interplay of Pre-Training, Mid-Training, and RL on Reasoning Language Models(01:04:42) Stabilizing Reinforcement Learning with LLMs: Formulation and Practices(01:09:42) Google’s AI unit DeepMind announces UK 'automated research lab'Policy & Safety(01:10:28) Trump Moves to Stop States From Regulating AI With a New Executive Order - The New York Times(01:13:54) [2512.09742] Weird Generalization and Inductive Backdoors: New Ways to Corrupt LLMs(01:17:57) Forecasting AI Time Horizon Under Compute Slowdowns(01:20:46) AI Security Institute focuses on AI measurements and evaluations(01:21:16) Nvidia AI Chips to Undergo Unusual U.S. Security Review Before Export to China(01:22:01) U.S. Authorities Shut Down Major China-Linked AI Tech Smuggling NetworkSynthetic Media & Art(01:24:01) RSL 1.0 has arrived, allowing publishers to ask AI companies pay to scrape content | The VergeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Our 227th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!Recorded on 12/05/2025Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and Jeremie HarrisFeel free to email us your questions and feedback at contact@lastweekinai.com and/or hello@gladstone.aiRead out our text newsletter and comment on the podcast at https://lastweekin.ai/In this episode:Deep Seek 3.2 and Flux 2 release, showcasing advancements in open-source AI models for natural language processing and image generation respectively.Amazon's new AI chips and Google's TPUs signal potential shifts in AI hardware dominance, with growing competition against Nvidia.Anthropic's potential IPO and OpenAI's declared ‘Code Red’ indicate significant moves in the AI business landscape, including high venture funding rounds for startups.Key research papers from DeepMind and Google explore advanced memory architectures and multi-agent systems, indicating ongoing efforts to enhance AI reasoning and efficiency.Timestamps:(00:00:10) Intro / Banter(00:02:42) News PreviewTools & Apps(00:03:30) Deepseek 3.2 : New AI Model is Faster, Cheaper and Smarter(00:23:22) Black Forest Labs launches Flux.2 AI image models to challenge Nano Banana Pro and Midjourney(00:28:00) Sora and Nano Banana Pro throttled amid soaring demand | The Verge(00:29:34) Mistral closes in on Big AI rivals with new open-weight frontier and small models | TechCrunch(00:31:41) Kling's Video O1 launches as the first all-in-one video model for generation and editing(00:34:07) Runway rolls out Gen 4.5 AI video model that beats Google, OpenAIApplications & Business(00:35:18) NVIDIA’s Partners Are Beginning to Tilt Toward Google’s TPU Ecosystem, with Foxconn Reportedly Securing TPU Rack Orders(00:40:37) Amazon releases an impressive new AI chip and teases an Nvidia-friendly roadmap | TechCrunch(00:43:03) OpenAI declares ‘code red’ as Google catches up in AI race | The Verge(00:46:20) Anthropic reportedly preparing for massive IPO in race with OpenAI: FT(00:48:41) Black Forest Labs raises $300M at $3.25B valuation | TechCrunch(00:49:20) Paris-based AI voice startup Gradium nabs $70M seed | TechCrunch(00:50:10) OpenAI announced a 1 GW Stargate cluster in Abu Dhabi(00:53:22) OpenAI’s investment into Thrive Holdings is its latest circular deal(00:55:11) OpenAI to acquire Neptune, an AI model training assistance startup(00:56:11) Anthropic acquires developer tool startup Bun to scale AI coding(00:56:55) Microsoft drops AI sales targets in half after salespeople miss their quotas - Ars TechnicaProjects & Open Source(00:57:51) [2511.22570] DeepSeekMath-V2: Towards Self-Verifiable Mathematical Reasoning(01:01:52) Evo-Memory: Benchmarking LLM Agent Test-time Learning with Self-Evolving MemoryResearch & Advancements(01:05:44) Nested Learning: The Illusion of Deep Learning Architecture(01:13:30) Multi-Agent Deep Research: Training Multi-Agent Systems with M-GRPO(01:15:50) State of AI: An Empirical 100 Trillion Token Study with OpenRouterPolicy & Safety(01:21:52) Trump signs executive order launching Genesis Mission AI project(01:24:42) OpenAI has trained its LLM to confess to bad behavior | MIT Technology Review(01:29:34) US senators seek to block Nvidia sales of advanced chips to ChinaSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Our 226th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!Recorded on 11/24/2025Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and co-hosted by Michelle LeeFeel free to email us your questions and feedback at contact@lastweekinai.com and/or hello@gladstone.aiRead out our text newsletter and comment on the podcast at https://lastweekin.ai/In this episode: New AI model releases include Google's Gemini 3 Pro, Anthropic's Opus 4.5, and OpenAI's GPT-5.1, each showcasing significant advancements in AI capabilities and applications.Robotics innovations feature Sunday Robotics' new robot Memo and a $600M funding round for Visual Intelligence, highlighting growth and investment in the robotics sector.AI safety and policy updates include Europe's proposed changes to GDPR and AI Act regulations, and reports of AI-assisted cyber espionage by a Chinese state-sponsored group.AI-generated content and legal highlights involve settlements between Warner Music Group and AI music platform UDIO, reflecting evolving dynamics in the field of synthetic media.Timestamps:(00:00:10) Intro / Banter(00:01:32) News Preview(00:02:10) Response to listener commentsTools & Apps(00:02:34) Google launches Gemini 3 with new coding app and record benchmark scores | TechCrunch(00:05:49) Google launches Nano Banana Pro powered by Gemini 3(00:10:55) Anthropic releases Opus 4.5 with new Chrome and Excel integrations | TechCrunch(00:15:34) OpenAI releases GPT-5.1-Codex-Max to handle engineering tasks that span twenty-four hours(00:18:26) ChatGPT launches group chats globally | TechCrunch(00:20:33) Grok Claims Elon Musk Is More Athletic Than LeBron James — and the World’s Greatest LoverApplications & Business(00:24:03) What AI bubble? Nvidia's strong earnings signal there's more room to grow(00:26:26) Alphabet stock surges on Gemini 3 AI model optimism(00:28:09) Sunday Robotics emerges from stealth with launch of ‘Memo’ humanoid house chores robot(00:32:30) Robotics Startup Physical Intelligence Valued at $5.6 Billion in New Funding - Bloomberg(00:34:22) Waymo permitted areas expanded by California DMV - CBS Los Angeles - Waymo enters 3 more cities: Minneapolis, New Orleans, and Tampa | TechCrunchProjects & Open Source(00:37:00) Meta AI Releases Segment Anything Model 3 (SAM 3) for Promptable Concept Segmentation in Images and Videos - MarkTechPost(00:40:18) [2511.16624] SAM 3D: 3Dfy Anything in Images(00:42:51) [2511.13998] LoCoBench-Agent: An Interactive Benchmark for LLM Agents in Long-Context Software EngineeringResearch & Advancements(00:45:10) [2511.08544] LeJEPA: Provable and Scalable Self-Supervised Learning Without the Heuristics(00:50:08) [2511.13720] Back to Basics: Let Denoising Generative Models DenoisePolicy & Safety(00:52:08) Europe is scaling back its landmark privacy and AI laws | The Verge(00:54:13) From shortcuts to sabotage: natural emergent misalignment from reward hacking(00:58:24) [2511.15304] Adversarial Poetry as a Universal Single-Turn Jailbreak Mechanism in Large Language Models(01:01:43) Disrupting the first reported AI-orchestrated cyber espionage campaign(01:04:36) OpenAI Locks Down San Francisco Offices Following Alleged Threat From Activist | WIREDSynthetic Media & Art(01:07:02) Warner Music Group Settles AI Lawsuit With UdioSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.