Last Week in AI

Our 242nd episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!
Recorded on 04/22/2026
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 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 comments

Tools & 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 Verge

Applications & 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 release

Projects & 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 - MarkTechPost

Policy & 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 claims

Research & 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 Simulation

Synthetic 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 Verge
See 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 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:
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 comments

Tools & 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 Verge

Applications & 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 Verge

Projects & 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 Worlds

Policy & 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 Urges
See 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 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:
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 / Banter
Tools & 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 Verge
Applications & 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 | TechCrunch
Projects & 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 Everywhere
Policy & 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, too
See 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 03/25/2026
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 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 / Banter
Tools & 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 | VentureBeat
Applications & 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 Verge
Policy & 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 doors
Research & Advancements
(01:24:24) Consciousness Cluster: Preferences of Models that Claim they are Conscious
(01:30:22) HyperAgents
See 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 03/18/2026
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 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 more
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Timestamps:
(00:00:10) Intro / Banter
(00:01:56) News Preview
Tools & 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 - CNET
Applications & 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 OpenAI
Policy & 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 Democrats
Research & Advancements
(01:40:050) [2603.15031] Attention Residuals
(01:47:11) Mamba-3: Improved Sequence Modeling using State Space Principles

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.