Last Week in AI

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Last Week in AI episodes

December 17, 2025#228 - GPT 5.2, Scaling Agents, Weird Generalization
Our 228th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!
Recorded on 12/12/2025
Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and Jeremie Harris
Feel free to email us your questions and feedback at [email protected] and/or [email protected]
Read 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 Preview
Tools & 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 parameters
Applications & 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 AI
Projects & 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 Document
Research & 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 Network
Synthetic Media & Art
(01:24:01) RSL 1.0 has arrived, allowing publishers to ask AI companies pay to scrape content | The Verge

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
1 hr 27 min
December 09, 2025#227 - Jeremie is back! DeepSeek 3.2, TPUs, Nested Learning
Our 227th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!
Recorded on 12/05/2025
Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and Jeremie Harris
Feel free to email us your questions and feedback at [email protected] and/or [email protected]
Read 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 Preview
Tools & 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, OpenAI
Applications & 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 Technica
Projects & 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 Memory
Research & 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 OpenRouter
Policy & 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 China
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
1 hr 35 min
November 30, 2025#226 - Gemini 3, Claude Opus 4.5, Nano Banana Pro, LeJEPA
Our 226th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!
Recorded on 11/24/2025
Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and co-hosted by Michelle Lee
Feel free to email us your questions and feedback at [email protected] and/or [email protected]
Read 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 comments
Tools & 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 Lover
Applications & 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 | TechCrunch
Projects & 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 Engineering
Research & 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 Denoise
Policy & 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 | WIRED
Synthetic Media & Art
(01:07:02) Warner Music Group Settles AI Lawsuit With Udio
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
1 hr 12 min
November 21, 2025#225 - GPT 5.1, Kimi K2 Thinking, Remote Labor Index
Our 225th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!
Recorded on 11/16/2025
Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and co-hosted by Michelle Lee
Feel free to email us your questions and feedback at [email protected] and/or [email protected]
Read out our text newsletter and comment on the podcast at https://lastweekin.ai/
In this episode:
New AI model releases include GPT-5.1 from OpenAI and Ernie 5.0 from Baidu, each with updated features and capabilities.
Self-driving technology advancements from Baidu’s Apollo Go and Pony AI’s IPO highlight significant progress in the automotive sector.
Startup funding updates include Incept taking $50M for diffusion models, while Cursor and Gamma secure significant valuations for coding and presentation tools respectively.
AI-generated content is gaining traction with songs topping charts and new marketplaces for AI-generated voices, indicating evolving trends in synthetic media.

Timestamps:
(00:01:19) News Preview
Tools & Apps
(00:02:13) OpenAI says the brand-new GPT-5.1 is ‘warmer’ and has more ‘personality’ options | The Verge
(00:04:51) Baidu Unveils ERNIE 5.0 and a Series of AI Applications at Baidu World 2025, Ramps Up Global Push
(00:07:00) ByteDance’s Volcano Engine debuts coding agent at $1.3 promo price
(00:08:04) Google will let users call stores, browse products, and check out using AI | The Verge
(00:10:41) Fei-Fei Li's World Labs speeds up the world model race with Marble, its first commercial product | TechCrunch
(00:13:30) OpenAI says it's fixed ChatGPT's em dash problem | TechCrunch
Applications & Business
(00:16:01) Anthropic announces $50 billion data center plan | TechCrunch
(00:18:06) Baidu teases next-gen AI training, inference accelerators • The Register
(00:20:50) Meta chief AI scientist Yann LeCun plans to exit and launch own start-up
(00:24:41) Amazon Demands Perplexity Stop AI Tool From Making Purchases - Bloomberg
(00:27:32) AI PowerPoint-killer Gamma hits $2.1B valuation, $100M ARR, founder says | TechCrunch
(00:29:33) Inception raises $50 million to build diffusion models for code and text | TechCrunch
(00:31:14) Coding assistant Cursor raises $2.3B 5 months after its previous round | TechCrunch
(00:33:56) China's Baidu says it's running 250,000 robotaxi rides a week — same as Alphabet's Waymo
(00:35:26) Driverless Tech Firm Pony AI Raises $863 Million in HK Listing
Projects & Open Source
(00:36:30) Moonshot's Kimi K2 Thinking emerges as leading open source AI
Research & Advancements
(00:39:22) [2510.26787] Remote Labor Index: Measuring AI Automation of Remote Work
(00:45:21) OpenAI Researchers Train Weight Sparse Transformers to Expose Interpretable Circuits - MarkTechPost
(00:49:34) Kimi Linear: An Expressive, Efficient Attention Architecture
(00:53:33) Watch Google DeepMind’s new AI agent learn to play video games | The Verge
(00:57:34) arXiv Changes Rules After Getting Spammed With AI-Generated 'Research' Papers
Policy & Safety
(00:59:35) Stability AI largely wins UK court battle against Getty Images over copyright and trademark | AP News
(01:01:48) Court rules that OpenAI violated German copyright law; orders it to pay damages | TechCrunch
(01:03:48) Microsoft's $15.2B UAE investment turns Gulf State into test case for US AI diplomacy | TechCrunch
Synthetic Media & Art
(01:06:39) An AI-Generated Country Song Is Topping A Billboard Chart, And That Should Infuriate Us All | Whiskey Riff
(01:10:59) Xania Monet is the first AI-powered artist to debut on a Billboard airplay chart, but she likely won’t be the last | CNN
(01:13:34) ElevenLabs’ new AI marketplace lets brands use famous voices for ads | The Verge
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
1 hr 19 min
November 05, 2025#224 - OpenAI is for-profit! Cursor 2, Minimax M2, Udio copyright
Our 224th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!
Recorded on 10/31/2025
Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and co-hosted by Gavin Purcell (check out AI For Humans and AndThen!)
Feel free to email us your questions and feedback at [email protected] and/or [email protected]
Read out our text newsletter and comment on the podcast at https://lastweekin.ai/
In this episode:
OpenAI completes its for-profit restructuring, redefining its relationship with Microsoft and securing future investments. Meanwhile, Qualcomm and other tech giants announce new AI chips aimed at competing with Nvidia and AMD, marking major advancements in AI hardware capabilities.
Amazon and Google deepen their partnerships with Anthropic, providing extensive computing resources to enhance AI research and applications. These developments signal significant growth and competition in the AI industry.
Major AI tools and models were released and updated, including Cursor 2.0, CLAUDE coding capabilities, and open-source options from Minimax. These new tools offer a range of functionalities for coding, design, and more.
Legal battles around AI copyright issues persist, as OpenAI faces ongoing lawsuits from authors over text generation using copyrighted material. Universal Music Group settles a copyright suit with AI music startup UDO, transitioning to a licensed model for AI-generated music. This shift reflects broader challenges and adaptations in the AI-generated content space, where copyright and ethical usage remain highly contentious issues.

Timestamps:
(00:00:10) Intro / Banter
(00:02:44) News Preview
Tools & Apps
(00:03:44) Cursor 2.0 shifts to in-house AI with Composer model and parallel agents
(00:07:44) Anthropic brings Claude Code to the web | TechCrunch
(00:10:01) Microsoft's Mico is a 'Clippy' for the AI era | TechCrunch
(00:14:20) Anthropic’s Claude catches up to ChatGPT and Gemini with upgraded memory features | The Verge
(00:18:46) Canva launches its own design model, adds new AI features to the platform | TechCrunch
(00:21:07) Elon Musk’s Grokipedia launches with AI-cloned pages from Wikipedia | The Verge
Applications & Business
(00:25:10) OpenAI completed its for-profit restructuring — and struck a new deal with Microsoft | The Verge
(00:31:25) Qualcomm announces AI chips to compete with AMD and Nvidia
(00:34:02) Amazon launches AI infrastructure project, to power Anthropic's Claude model | Reuters
(00:38:52) Google and Anthropic announce cloud deal worth tens of billions
(00:39:46) Google partners with Ambani's Reliance to offer free AI Pro access to millions of Jio users in India | TechCrunch
Projects & Open Source
(00:41:17) MiniMax Releases MiniMax M2: A Mini Open Model Built for Max Coding and Agentic Workflows at 8% Claude Sonnet Price and ~2x Faster - MarkTechPost
(00:45:22) [2510.25741] Scaling Latent Reasoning via Looped Language Models
(00:47:59) OpenAI’s gpt-oss-safeguard enables developers to build safer AI - Help Net Security
Research & Advancements
(00:49:51) [2510.15103] Continual Learning via Sparse Memory Finetuning
(00:54:01) [2510.18091] Accelerating Vision Transformers with Adaptive Patch Sizes
(00:57:46) [2510.18871] How Do LLMs Use Their Depth?
Policy & Safety
(01:01:07) AMD, Department of Energy announce $1 billion AI supercomputer partnership | The Verge
(01:03:03)
Synthetic Media & Art
(01:09:34) Universal partners with AI startup Udio after settling copyright suit | The Verge
(01:16:04) OpenAI loses bid to dismiss part of US authors' copyright lawsuit | Reuters
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
1 hr 32 min
October 24, 2025#223 - Haiku 4.5, OpenAI DevDay, Claude Skills, Scaling RL, SB 243
Our 223st episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!
Recorded on 10/17/2025
Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and co-hosted by Erik Schnultz
Feel free to email us your questions and feedback at [email protected] and/or [email protected]
Read out our text newsletter and comment on the podcast at https://lastweekin.ai/
In this episode:
Anthropic and OpenAI have announced updates to their AI models and tools, including Haiku 4.5 and various business collaborations.
Multiple companies like Slack and Salesforce are integrating AI assistants and agents into their platforms, enhancing task management and business operations.
Recent research in reinforcement learning and agent memory curation highlights new methods for improving AI model performance and context management.
California has passed a law to regulate AI chatbots for children and vulnerable users, and there are rising concerns over the increasing amount of AI-generated content on the internet.
Timestamps:
(00:00:10) Intro / Banter
(00:01:31) News Preview
Tools & Apps
(00:02:18) Anthropic launches new version of scaled-down ‘Haiku’ model
(00:04:52) Everything OpenAI announced at DevDay 2025: Agent Kit, Apps SDK, ChatGPT, and more | ZDNET
(00:09:11) Anthropic turns to ‘skills’ to make Claude more useful at work | The Verge
(00:13:20) Microsoft launches ‘vibe working’ in Excel and Word | The Verge
(00:17:22) Google releases Veo 3.1, adds it to Flow video editor | TechCrunch
(00:19:40) Slack is turning Slackbot into an AI assistant | The Verge
(00:22:52) Salesforce announces Agentforce 360 as enterprise AI competition heats up | TechCrunch
Applications & Business
(00:24:58) Broadcom stock pops 9% on OpenAI custom chip deal, adding to Nvidia and AMD agreements
(00:27:58) How ByteDance Made China’s Most Popular AI Chatbot | WIRED
(00:30:08) Amazon's Zoox Robotaxis Have Arrived In Las Vegas - Here's What Riders Are Experiencing
(00:32:43) Waymo’s robotaxis are coming to London | The Verge
(00:34:14) Reflection AI raises $2B to be America's open frontier AI lab, challenging DeepSeek | TechCrunch
(00:35:58) General Intuition lands $134M seed to teach agents spatial reasoning using video game clips | TechCrunch
(00:38:36) Supabase nabs $5B valuation, four months after hitting $2B | TechCrunch
Projects & Open Source
(00:40:58) Neuphonic Open-Sources NeuTTS Air: A 748M-Parameter On-Device Speech Language Model with Instant Voice Cloning - MarkTechPost
(00:43:06) Anthropic AI Releases Petri: An Open-Source Framework for Automated Auditing by Using AI Agents to Test the Behaviors of Target Models on Diverse Scenarios - MarkTechPost
Research & Advancements
(00:44:25) [2510.13786] The Art of Scaling Reinforcement Learning Compute for LLMs
(00:48:51) [2510.01171] Verbalized Sampling: How to Mitigate Mode Collapse and Unlock LLM Diversity
(00:51:22) [2510.12635] Memory as Action: Autonomous Context Curation for Long-Horizon Agentic Tasks
(00:54:31) [2510.07364] Base Models Know How to Reason, Thinking Models Learn When
(00:57:24) [2510.12402] Cautious Weight Decay
Policy & Safety
(01:02:03) California becomes first state to regulate AI companion chatbots | TechCrunch
(01:04:13) Over 50 Percent of the Internet Is Now AI Slop, New Data Finds
Synthetic Media & Art
(01:06:31) OpenAI Reverses Stance on Use of Copyright Works in Sora - WSJ
(01:08:29) Character.AI removes Disney characters from platform after studio issues warning
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
1 hr 12 min
October 07, 2025#222 - Sora 2, Sonnet 4.5, Vibes, Thinking Machines
Our 222st episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!
Recorded on 10/03/2025
Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and co-hosted by Jon Krohn
Feel free to email us your questions and feedback at [email protected] and/or [email protected]
Read out our text newsletter and comment on the podcast at https://lastweekin.ai/
In this episode:
OpenAI introduced several new features, including SOA 2 for text-to-video generation, Claude Sonnet 4.5 for coding and agentic tasks, and the pulse feature for personalized morning briefs.
Meta launched a new AI video creation feature called Vibes in its Meta AI app and on meta.ai, facing mixed reactions from the public regarding AI-generated content.
California's SB 53, the Transparency in Frontier AI Act, has become law, requiring large AI companies to disclose safety and security processes, while SB 942 mandates AI detection tools for user-generated content.
AI regulations and industry dynamics, including battles over intellectual property, startup funding, and the integration of AI into everyday tools and services like Microsoft's AI agents for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

In this episode:
(00:00:10) Intro / Banter
(00:03:08) News Preview
(00:03:56) Response to listener comments

Tools & Apps
(00:04:51) ChatGPT parent company OpenAI announces Sora 2 with AI video app
(00:11:35) Anthropic releases Claude Sonnet 4.5 in latest bid for AI agents and coding supremacy | The Verge
(00:22:25) Meta launches 'Vibes,' a short-form video feed of AI slop | TechCrunch
(00:26:42) OpenAI launches ChatGPT Pulse to proactively write you morning briefs | TechCrunch
(00:33:44) OpenAI rolls out safety routing system, parental controls on ChatGPT | TechCrunch
(00:35:53) The Latest Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Preview is Now the Fastest Proprietary Model (External Tests) and 50% Fewer Output Tokens - MarkTechPost
(00:39:54) Microsoft just added AI agents to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint - how to use them | ZDNET

Applications & Business
(00:42:41) OpenAI takes on Google, Amazon with new agentic shopping system | TechCrunch
(00:46:01) Exclusive: Mira Murati’s Stealth AI Lab Launches Its First Product | WIRED
(00:49:54) OpenAI is the world's most valuable private company after private stock sale | TechCrunch
(00:53:07) Elon Musk’s xAI accuses OpenAI of stealing trade secrets in new lawsuit | Technology | The Guardian
(00:55:40) Former OpenAI and DeepMind researchers raise whopping $300M seed to automate science | TechCrunch

Projects & Open Source
(00:58:26) [2509.16941] SWE-Bench Pro: Can AI Agents Solve Long-Horizon Software Engineering Tasks?

Research & Advancements
(01:01:28) [2509.17196] Evolution of Concepts in Language Model Pre-Training
(01:05:36) [2509.19284] What Characterizes Effective Reasoning? Revisiting Length, Review, and Structure of CoT
Lighting round
(01:09:37) [2507.02954] Advanced Financial Reasoning at Scale: A Comprehensive Evaluation of Large Language Models on CFA Level III
(01:12:03) [2509.24552] Short window attention enables long-term memorization

Policy & Safety
(01:18:11) SB 53, the landmark AI transparency bill, is now law in California | The Verge
(01:24:07) Elon Musk's xAI offers Grok to federal government for 42 cents | TechCrunch
(01:25:23) Character.AI removes Disney characters from platform after studio issues warning
(01:28:50) Spotify's Attempt to Fight AI Slop Falls on Its Face
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
1 hr 38 min
October 07, 2025#221 - OpenAI Codex, Gemini in Chrome, K2-Think, SB 53
Our 221st episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!
Recorded on 09/19/2025
Note: we transitioned to a new RSS feed and it seems this did not make it to there, so this may be posted about 2 weeks past the release date.
Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and co-hosted by Michelle Lee
Feel free to email us your questions and feedback at [email protected] and/or [email protected]
Read out our text newsletter and comment on the podcast at https://lastweekin.ai/
In this episode:
OpenAI releases a new version of Codex integrated with GPT-5, enhancing coding capabilities and aiming to compete with other AI coding tools like Cloud Code.
Significant updates in the robotics sector include new ventures in humanoid robots from companies like Figure AI and China’s Unitree, as well as expansions in robotaxi services from Tesla and Amazon’s Zoox.
New open-source models and research advancements were discussed, including Google's DeepMind's self-improving foundation model for robotics and a physics foundation model aimed at generalizing across various physical systems.
Legal battles continue to surface in the AI landscape with Warner Bros. suing MidJourney for copyright violations and Rolling Stone suing Google over AI-generated content summaries, highlighting challenges in AI governance and ethics.
Timestamps:
(00:00:10) Intro / Banter

Tools & Apps
(00:02:33) OpenAI upgrades Codex with a new version of GPT-5
(00:04:02) Google Injects Gemini Into Chrome as AI Browsers Go Mainstream | WIRED
(00:06:14) Anthropic’s Claude can now make you a spreadsheet or slide deck. | The Verge
(00:07:12) Luma AI's New Ray3 Video Generator Can 'Think' Before Creating - CNET
Applications & Business
(00:08:32) OpenAI secures Microsoft's blessing to transition its for-profit arm | TechCrunch
(00:10:31) Microsoft to lessen reliance on OpenAI by buying AI from rival Anthropic | TechCrunch
(00:12:00) Figure AI passes $1B with Series C funding toward humanoid robot development - The Robot Report
(00:13:52) China’s Unitree plans $7 billion IPO valuation as humanoid robot race heats up
(00:15:45) Tesla's robotaxi plans for Nevada move forward with testing permit | TechCrunch
(00:17:48) Amazon's Zoox jumps into U.S. robotaxi race with Las Vegas launch
(00:19:27) Replit hits $3B valuation on $150M annualized revenue | TechCrunch
(00:21:14) Perplexity reportedly raised $200M at $20B valuation | TechCrunch
Projects & Open Source
(00:22:08) [2509.07604] K2-Think: A Parameter-Efficient Reasoning System
(00:24:31) [2509.09614] LoCoBench: A Benchmark for Long-Context Large Language Models in Complex Software Engineering
Research & Advancements
(00:28:17) [2509.15155] Self-Improving Embodied Foundation Models
(00:31:47) [2509.13805] Towards a Physics Foundation Model
(00:34:26) [2509.12129] Embodied Navigation Foundation Model
Policy & Safety
(00:37:49) Anthropic endorses California's AI safety bill, SB 53 | TechCrunch
(00:40:12) Warner Bros. Sues Midjourney, Joins Studios' AI Copyright Battle
(00:42:02) Rolling Stone Publisher Sues Google Over AI Overview Summaries

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
48 min
September 23, 2025#221 - OpenAI Codex, Gemini in Chrome, K2-Think, SB 53
Our 221st episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!
Recorded on 09/19/2025
Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and co-hosted by Michelle Lee
Feel free to email us your questions and feedback at [email protected] and/or [email protected]
Read out our text newsletter and comment on the podcast at https://lastweekin.ai/
In this episode:
OpenAI releases a new version of Codex integrated with GPT-5, enhancing coding capabilities and aiming to compete with other AI coding tools like Cloud Code.
Significant updates in the robotics sector include new ventures in humanoid robots from companies like Figure AI and China’s Unitree, as well as expansions in robotaxi services from Tesla and Amazon’s Zoox.
New open-source models and research advancements were discussed, including Google's DeepMind's self-improving foundation model for robotics and a physics foundation model aimed at generalizing across various physical systems.
Legal battles continue to surface in the AI landscape with Warner Bros. suing MidJourney for copyright violations and Rolling Stone suing Google over AI-generated content summaries, highlighting challenges in AI governance and ethics.
Timestamps:
(00:00:10) Intro / Banter

Tools & Apps
(00:02:33) OpenAI upgrades Codex with a new version of GPT-5
(00:04:02) Google Injects Gemini Into Chrome as AI Browsers Go Mainstream | WIRED
(00:06:14) Anthropic’s Claude can now make you a spreadsheet or slide deck. | The Verge
(00:07:12) Luma AI's New Ray3 Video Generator Can 'Think' Before Creating - CNET
Applications & Business
(00:08:32) OpenAI secures Microsoft's blessing to transition its for-profit arm | TechCrunch
(00:10:31) Microsoft to lessen reliance on OpenAI by buying AI from rival Anthropic | TechCrunch
(00:12:00) Figure AI passes $1B with Series C funding toward humanoid robot development - The Robot Report
(00:13:52) China’s Unitree plans $7 billion IPO valuation as humanoid robot race heats up
(00:15:45) Tesla's robotaxi plans for Nevada move forward with testing permit | TechCrunch
(00:17:48) Amazon's Zoox jumps into U.S. robotaxi race with Las Vegas launch
(00:19:27) Replit hits $3B valuation on $150M annualized revenue | TechCrunch
(00:21:14) Perplexity reportedly raised $200M at $20B valuation | TechCrunch
Projects & Open Source
(00:22:08) [2509.07604] K2-Think: A Parameter-Efficient Reasoning System
(00:24:31) [2509.09614] LoCoBench: A Benchmark for Long-Context Large Language Models in Complex Software Engineering
Research & Advancements
(00:28:17) [2509.15155] Self-Improving Embodied Foundation Models
(00:31:47) [2509.13805] Towards a Physics Foundation Model
(00:34:26) [2509.12129] Embodied Navigation Foundation Model
Policy & Safety
(00:37:49) Anthropic endorses California's AI safety bill, SB 53 | TechCrunch
(00:40:12) Warner Bros. Sues Midjourney, Joins Studios' AI Copyright Battle
(00:42:02) Rolling Stone Publisher Sues Google Over AI Overview Summaries
48 min
September 01, 2025#220 - Gemini 2.5 Flash Image, Claude for Chrome, DeepConf
Our 220th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!
Recorded on 08/30/2025
Check out Andrey's work over at Astrocade , sign up to be an ambassador here
Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and co-hosted by Daniel Bashir
Feel free to email us your questions and feedback at [email protected] and/or [email protected]
Read out our text newsletter and comment on the podcast at https://lastweekin.ai/
In this episode:
Google's newly released Gemini 2.5 image editing model showcases remarkable advancements, enabling highly accurate modifications of subjects while retaining their original features.
Anthropic expands Claude with an AI browser agent for Chrome and adds features to remember past conversations, enhancing the user experience and personalization.
NVIDIA and AMD to share revenue from AI chip sales to China with US government, marking a notable shift in export control policies and trade practices.
AI companion apps are experiencing substantial growth, with projected revenues expected to reach $120 million by 2025, raising questions about social implications and user engagement.
Timestamps + Links:
Tools & Apps
(00:02:12) Google Gemini's AI image model gets a 'bananas' upgrade | TechCrunch
(00:05:32) Anthropic launches a Claude AI agent that lives in Chrome | TechCrunch
(00:08:30) Anthropic’s Claude chatbot can now remember your past conversations | The Verge
(00:11:46) Google Launches AI ‘Guided Learning’ Tool to Teach Users
(00:14:55) Apple Intelligence’s ChatGPT integration will use GPT-5 starting with iOS 26 | The Verge
(00:15:39) OpenAI Adds New Features to Codex, Like IDE Extension and GitHub Code Reviews
Applications & Business
(00:16:49) Lovable projects $1B in ARR within next 12 months | TechCrunch
(00:18:56) Decart hits $3.1 billion valuation on $100 million raise to power real-time interacti | Ctech
(00:20:19) Cohere raises $500M to beat back generative AI rivals | TechCrunch
(00:21:25) Pony AI, Nearing Full-Year Robotaxi Goal, Eyes European Markets - Bloomberg
(00:22:41) Co-founder of Elon Musk's xAI departs the company | TechCrunch
Projects & Open Source
(00:24:39) Meta AI Just Released DINOv3: A State-of-the-Art Computer Vision Model Trained with Self-Supervised Learning, Generating High-Resolution Image Features - MarkTechPost
(00:27:02) GLM-4.5: Agentic, Reasoning, and Coding (ARC) Foundation Models
(00:29:49) China’s DeepSeek Releases V3.1, Boosting AI Model’s Capabilities - Bloomberg
(00:30:36) Open weight LLMs exhibit inconsistent performance across providers
(00:32:02) Microsoft Released VibeVoice-1.5B: An Open-Source Text-to-Speech Model that can Synthesize up to 90 Minutes of Speech with Four Distinct Speakers - MarkTechPost
Research & Advancements
(00:33:43) Deep Think with Confidence
(00:36:30) Generative AI reshapes U.S. job market, Stanford study shows
Policy & Safety
(00:41:42) Inside the US Government's Unpublished Report on AI Safety | WIRED
(00:44:10) U.S. Government to Take Cut of Nvidia and AMD A.I. Chip Sales to China - The New York Times
(00:45:13) Anthropic Settles High-Profile AI Copyright Lawsuit Brought by Book Authors
(00:46:56) AI companion apps on track to pull in $120M in 2025 | TechCrunch
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
53 min