Last Week in AI

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 [email protected] and/or [email protected] 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 [email protected] and/or [email protected] 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 [email protected] and/or [email protected] 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 [email protected] and/or [email protected] 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 [email protected] and/or [email protected] 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.