Last Week in AI

Our 237th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!
Recorded on 03/13/2026
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:
* 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 more
ODSC 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 year

Timestamps:
(00:00:10) Intro / Banter
(00:01:23) Response to listener comments
Tools & 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 Verge

Projects & Open Source
(00:13:54) Introducing Nemotron 3 Super: An Open Hybrid Mamba-Transformer MoE for Agentic Reasoning | NVIDIA Technical Blog

Applications & 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 | TechCrunch

Policy & 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 Probabilities

Research & 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-seeking
See 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 03/06/2026
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 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 more
ODSC 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 year

Timestamps:
(00:00:10) Intro / Banter
(00:01:19) News Preview

Tools & 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 | TechCrunch

Applications & 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 lead

Policy & 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 02/27/2026
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:
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 more
ODSC 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 year

Timestamps:
(00:00:10) Intro / Banter
(00:01:52) News Preview
Tools & 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 Technica
Applications & 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 2030
Research & 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 Humans
Policy & 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 - SiliconANGLE
See 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 01/02/2026
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:
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 more
ODSC 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 year

Timestamps:
(00:00:10) Intro / Banter
(00:02:03) Sponsor Break
(00:05:33) Response to listener comments
Tools & 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 video
Applications & 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 Verge
Projects & 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 Verge
Research & 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 Assistant
Policy & 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 01/30/2026
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:
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 / Banter

Tools & 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 | TechCrunch

Applications & 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 | TechCrunch

Projects & 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 Llama

Research & 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 Learnability

Policy & Safety
(01:09:13) Amodei, Hoffman Join Tech Workers Decrying Minnesota Violence - Bloomberg
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.