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Last Week in AI

Last Week in AI

Written by: Skynet Today
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 Weekly summaries of the AI news that matters!© Copyright 2024 All rights reserved. Politics & Government
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  • #230 - 2025 Retrospective, Nvidia buys Groq, GLM 4.7, METR

    #230 - 2025 Retrospective, Nvidia buys Groq, GLM 4.7, METR
    Jan 7 2026
    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.
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    1 hr and 38 mins
  • #229 - Gemini 3 Flash, ChatGPT Apps, Nemotron 3

    #229 - Gemini 3 Flash, ChatGPT Apps, Nemotron 3
    Dec 25 2025
    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.
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    1 hr and 27 mins
  • #228 - GPT 5.2, Scaling Agents, Weird Generalization

    #228 - GPT 5.2, Scaling Agents, Weird Generalization
    Dec 17 2025
    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.
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    1 hr and 27 mins
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