Last Week in AI

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Last Week in AI

Skynet Today

Weekly summaries of the AI news that matters!

1 hour 42 minutes

#207 - GPT 4.1, Gemini 2.5 Flash, Ironwood, Claude Max
Our 207th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!
Recorded on 04/14/2025

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/.

Join our Discord here! https://discord.gg/nTyezGSKwP

In this episode:
- OpenAI introduces GPT-4.1 with optimized coding and instruction-following capabilities, featuring variants like GPT-4.1 Mini and Nano, and a million-token context window.
- Concerns arise as OpenAI reduces resources for safety testing, sparking internal and external criticisms.
- XAI's newly launched API for Grok 3 showcases significant capabilities comparable to other leading models.
- Meta faces allegations of aiding China in AI development for business advantages, with potential compliances and public scrutiny looming.
Timestamps + Links:
- Tools & Apps
  - (00:03:13) OpenAI’s new GPT-4.1 AI models focus on coding
  - (00:08:12) ChatGPT will now remember your old conversations
  - (00:11:16) Google’s newest Gemini AI model focuses on efficiency
  - (00:14:27) Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, launches an API for Grok 3
  - (00:18:35) Canva is now in the coding and spreadsheet business
  - (00:20:31) Meta’s vanilla Maverick AI model ranks below rivals on a popular chat benchmark
- Applications & Business
  - (00:25:46) Ironwood: The first Google TPU for the age of inference
  - (00:34:15) Anthropic rolls out a $200-per-month Claude subscription
  - (00:37:17) OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever’s Safe Superintelligence reportedly valued at $32B
  - (00:40:20) Mira Murati’s AI startup gains prominent ex-OpenAI advisers
  - (00:42:52) Hugging Face buys a humanoid robotics startup
  - (00:44:58) Stargate developer Crusoe could spend $3.5 billion on a Texas data center. Most of it will be tax-free.
- Projects & Open Source
  - (00:48:14) OpenAI Open Sources BrowseComp: A New Benchmark for Measuring the Ability for AI Agents to Browse the Web
- Research & Advancements
- Policy & Safety
18 April 2025, 7:47 am
1 hour 13 minutes

#206 - Llama 4, Nova Act, xAI buys X, PaperBench
Our 206th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!
Recorded on 04/07/2025

Try out the Astrocade demo here! https://www.astrocade.com/

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/.

Join our Discord here! https://discord.gg/nTyezGSKwP

In this episode:
- Meta releases LlAMA-4, a series of advanced large language models, sparking debate on performance and release timing, with models featuring up to 2 trillion parameters for different configurations and applications.
- Amazon's AGI Lab debuts NOVA Act, an AI agent for web browser control, boasting competitive benchmarking against OpenAI's and Anthropic's best agents.
- OpenAI's image generation capabilities and ongoing financing developments, notably a $40 billion funding round led by SoftBank, highlight significant advancements and strategic shifts in the tech giant’s operations.
Timestamps + Links:
- (00:00:00) Intro / Banter
Tools & Apps
- (00:01:46) Meta releases Llama 4, a new crop of flagship AI models
- (00:13:55) Amazon unveils Nova Act, an AI agent that can control a web browser
- (00:17:06) Alibaba Preparing for Flagship AI Model Release as Soon as April
- (00:17:59) Runway releases an impressive new video-generating AI model
- (00:19:10) Adobe launches Premiere Pro’s generative AI video extender
- (00:20:54) OpenAI prepares reasoning slider and memory update for ChatGPT users
Applications & Business
Research & Advancements
- (00:38:03) PaperBench: Evaluating AI's Ability to Replicate AI Research
- (00:43:50) Crossing the Reward Bridge: Expanding RL with Verifiable Rewards Across Diverse Domains
- (00:48:39) Inference-Time Scaling for Complex Tasks: Where We Stand and What Lies Ahead
- (00:54:34) Overtrained Language Models Are Harder to Fine-Tune
Policy & Safety
- (00:58:28) Taking a responsible path to AGI
- (01:02:32) This A.I. Forecast Predicts Storms Ahead
- (01:06:24) The Secrets and Misdirection Behind Sam Altman’s Firing From OpenAI
9 April 2025, 10:14 pm
1 hour 34 minutes

#205 - Gemini 2.5, ChatGPT Image Gen, Thoughts of LLMs
Our 205th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!
Recorded on 03/28/2025

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/.

Join our Discord here! https://discord.gg/nTyezGSKwP

In this episode:
- OpenAI's new image generation capabilities represent significant advancements in AI tools, showcasing impressive benchmarks and multimodal functionalities.
- OpenAI is finalizing a historic $40 billion funding round led by SoftBank, and Sam Altman shifts focus to technical direction while COO Brad Lightcap takes on more operational responsibilities.,
- Anthropic unveils groundbreaking interpretability research, introducing cross-layer tracers and showcasing deep insights into model reasoning through applications on Claude 3.5.
- New challenging benchmarks such as ARC AGI 2 and complex Sudoku variations aim to push the boundaries of reasoning and problem-solving capabilities in AI models.
Timestamps + Links:
- (00:00:00) Intro / Banter
- (00:01:01) News Preview
- Tools & Apps
- Applications & Business
- Projects & Open Source
- (00:40:27) A new, challenging AGI test stumps most AI models
- (00:45:16) Challenging the Boundaries of Reasoning: An Olympiad-Level Math Benchmark for Large Language Models
- (00:48:13) Wan: Open and Advanced Large-Scale Video Generative Models
- (00:50:38) DeepSeek V3-0324 tops non-reasoning AI models in open-source first
- (00:54:46) OpenAI adopts rival Anthropic’s standard for connecting AI models to data
- Research & Advancements
- (00:55:56) Anthropic can now track the bizarre inner workings of a large language model
- (01:06:00) Chain-of-Tools: Utilizing Massive Unseen Tools in the CoT Reasoning of Frozen Language Models
- (01:11:50) Inside-Out: Hidden Factual Knowledge in LLMs
- (01:15:14) Sakana AI super-powers AI reasoning using Japan’s own Sudoku Puzzles
- (01:27:55) Judge allows 'New York Times' copyright case against OpenAI to go forward
- (01:29:48) Judge rules that AI can continue training on copyrighted lyrics, for now
1 April 2025, 4:07 pm
1 hour 49 minutes

#204 - OpenAI Audio, Rubin GPUs, MCP, Zochi
Our 204th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!
Recorded on 03/21/2025

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/.

Join our Discord here! https://discord.gg/nTyezGSKwP

In this episode:
- Baidu launched two new multimodal models, Ernie 4.5 and Ernie X1, boasting competitive pricing and capabilities compared to Western counterparts like GPT-4.5 and DeepSeek R1.
- OpenAI introduced new audio models, including impressive speech-to-text and text-to-speech systems, and added O1 Pro to their developer API at high costs, reflecting efforts for more profitability.
- Nvidia and Apple announced significant hardware advancements, including Nvidia's future GPU plans and Apple's new Mac Studio offering that can run DeepSeek R1.
- DeepSeek employees are facing travel restrictions, suggesting China is treating its AI development with increased secrecy and urgency, emphasizing a wartime footing in AI competition.
Timestamps + Links:
- (00:00:00) Intro / Banter
- (00:01:36) News Preview
- Tools & Apps
- - (00:02:50) Baidu launches two new versions of its AI model Ernie
  - (00:10:46) OpenAI Unveils New Audio Models to Make AI Agents Sound More Human Than Ever
  - (00:16:41) OpenAI’s o1-pro is the company’s most expensive AI model yet
  - (00:20:53) Google brings a ‘canvas’ feature to Gemini, plus Audio Overview
  - (00:22:18) Anthropic adds web search to its Claude chatbot
  - (00:23:55) xAI launches an API for generating images
- Applications & Business
- Projects & Open Source
- - (00:46:32) Anthropic’s Not-So-Secret Weapon That’s Giving Agents a Boost
  - (00:50:50) Mistral AI drops new open-source model that outperforms GPT-4o Mini with fraction of parameters
  - (00:53:30) EXAONE Deep: Reasoning Enhanced Language Models
- Research & Advancements
- - (00:55:58) Sample, Scrutinize and Scale: Effective Inference-Time Search by Scaling Verification
  - (01:07:44) Block Diffusion: Interpolating Between Autoregressive and Diffusion Language Models
  - (01:12:27) Communication-Efficient Language Model Training Scales Reliably and Robustly: Scaling Laws for DiLoCo
  - (01:18:46) Transformers without Normalization
  - (01:19:52) Measuring AI Ability to Complete Long Tasks
  - (01:26:12) HCAST: Human-Calibrated Autonomy Software Tasks
- Policy & Safety
- - (01:26:45) Announcing Zochi, an Intology Project
  - (01:32:46) DeepSeek, a National Treasure in China, is Now Being Closely Guarded
  - (01:37:02) Claude Sonnet 3.7 (often) knows when it’s in alignment evaluations
- Synthetic Media & Art
- - (01:42:27) US appeals court rejects copyrights for AI-generated art lacking 'human' creator
  - (01:45:10) Trump urged by Ben Stiller, Paul McCartney and hundreds of stars to protect AI copyright rules
24 March 2025, 10:49 pm
1 hour 46 minutes

#203 - Gemini Image Gen, Ascend 910C, Gemma 3, Gemini Robotics
Our 203rd episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!
Recorded on 03/14/2025

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/.

Join our Discord here! https://discord.gg/nTyezGSKwP

In this episode:
- OpenAI's new 'deep research' feature has raised concerns about cybersecurity and the potential misuse of AI models for bio-weapons and autonomous capabilities, prompting new safety and governance measures.
- Google's extensive $3 billion investment in Anthropic is revealed, aligning with their AI strategy and reinforcing the importance of multiple technology partnerships.
- Huawei's advancements in the AI chip industry are highlighted, with significant progress in producing chips comparable to Nvidia's H100, despite export control challenges.
- China's recent directive discourages AI executives from traveling to the US, reflecting heightened security concerns and potentially signaling a more adversarial stance in the AI race.
Timestamps + Links:
- (00:00:00) Intro / Banter
- (00:01:30) News Preview
- Tools & Apps
- - (00:02:30) OpenAI launches new tools to help businesses build AI agents
  - (00:08:50) You can now test Gemini 2.0 Flash’s native image output
  - (00:13:32) Waymo is now offering 24/7 robotaxi rides in Silicon Valley
  - (00:17:19) Moonvalley releases a video generator it claims was trained on licensed content
  - (00:21:11) Snap introduces AI Video Lenses powered by its in-house generative model
  - (00:23:37) Sudowrite Launches Muse AI Model That Can Generate Narrative-Driven Fiction
- Applications & Business
- Projects & Open Source
- Research & Advancements
- - (01:06:25) Google’s Gemini Robotics AI Model Reaches Into the Physical World
  - (01:14:33) Optimizing Test-Time Compute via Meta Reinforcement Fine-Tuning
  - (01:23:29) Deep Research System Card
  - (01:29:50) Claude 3.7 Sonnet System Card
- Policy & Safety
- - (01:33:24) Detecting misbehavior in frontier reasoning models
  - (01:39:30) China tells its AI leaders to avoid US travel over security concerns, WSJ reports
- (01:43:48) Outro
17 March 2025, 8:19 pm
1 hour 19 minutes

#202 - Qwen-32B, Anthropic's $3.5 billion, LLM Cognitive Behaviors
Our 202nd episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!
Recorded on 03/07/2025

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/.

Join our Discord here! https://discord.gg/nTyezGSKwP

In this episode:
- Alibaba released Qwen-32B, their latest reasoning model, on par with leading models like DeepMind’s R1.
- Anthropic raised $3.5 billion in a funding round, valuing the company at $61.5 billion, solidifying its position as a key competitor to OpenAI.
- DeepMind introduced BigBench Extra Hard, a more challenging benchmark to evaluate the reasoning capabilities of large language models.
- Reinforcement Learning pioneers Andrew Bartow and Rich Sutton were awarded the prestigious Turing Award for their contributions to the field.
Timestamps + Links:

cle picks:
- (00:00:00) Intro / Banter
- (00:01:41) Episode Preview
- (00:02:50) GPT-4.5 Discussion
- (00:33:19) A.I. Start-Up Anthropic Closes Deal That Values It at $61.5 Billion
- (00:35:49) Nvidia-Backed CoreWeave Files for IPO, Shows Growing Revenue
- (00:38:05) Waymo and Uber's Austin robotaxi expansion begins today
- (00:38:54) UK competition watchdog drops Microsoft-OpenAI probe
- (00:41:17) Scale AI announces multimillion-dollar defense deal, a major step in U.S. military automation
- (00:44:43) DeepSeek Open Source Week: A Complete Summary
- (00:45:25) DeepSeek AI Releases DualPipe: A Bidirectional Pipeline Parallelism Algorithm for Computation-Communication Overlap in V3/R1 Training
- (00:53:00) Physical Intelligence open-sources Pi0 robotics foundation model
- (00:54:23) BIG-Bench Extra Hard
- (00:56:10) Cognitive Behaviors that Enable Self-Improving Reasoners
- (01:01:49) The MASK Benchmark: Disentangling Honesty From Accuracy in AI Systems
- (01:05:32) Pioneers of Reinforcement Learning Win the Turing Award
- (01:06:56) OpenAI launches $50M grant program to help fund academic research
- (01:07:25) The Nuclear-Level Risk of Superintelligent AI
- (01:13:34) METR’s GPT-4.5 pre-deployment evaluations
- (01:17:16) Chinese buyers are getting Nvidia Blackwell chips despite US export controls
9 March 2025, 9:19 am
58 minutes 37 seconds

#201 - GPT 4.5, Sonnet 3.7, Grok 3, Phi 4
Our 201st episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!
Recorded on 03/02/2025

Join our brand new Discord here! https://discord.gg/nTyezGSKwP

Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and guest host Sharon Zhou
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:

- The release of GPT-4.5 from OpenAI, Anthropic's Claude 3.7, and Grok 3 from XAI, comparing their features, costs, and capabilities.
- Discussion on new tools and applications including Sesame's new voice assistant and Google's AI coding assistant, Gemini Code Assist, highlighting their unique benefits.
- OpenAI's continued user growth despite competition, pricing models for Google's text-to-video platform, and HP acquiring and shutting down Humane's AI pin.
- Insights into new research on alignment and specification gaming in LLMs, including papers on fine-tuning causing broad misalignment and Google's multi-agent system for scientific collaboration.

Timestamps + Links:
- (00:00:00) Intro / Banter
- (00:01:36) News Preview
- Tools & Apps
- - (00:02:33) OpenAI announces GPT-4.5, warns it’s not a frontier AI model
  - (00:07:22) Anthropic launches a new AI model that ‘thinks’ as long as you want
  - (00:11:14) New Grok 3 release tops LLM leaderboards
  - (00:16:43) Sesame is the first voice assistant I’ve ever wanted to talk to more than once
  - (00:18:30) Google launches a free AI coding assistant with very high usage caps
  - (00:20:45) Rabbit shows off the AI agent it should have launched with
  - (00:22:23) Mistral’s Le Chat tops 1M downloads in just 14 days
- Applications & Business
  - (00:24:06) OpenAI Tops 400 Million Users Despite DeepSeek’s Emergence
  - (00:27:37) Google’s new AI video model Veo 2 will cost 50 cents per second
  - (00:29:52) HP is buying Humane and shutting down the AI Pin
- Projects & Open Source
- Research & Advancements
- - (00:40:00) Towards an AI co-scientist
  - (00:42:52) Magma: A Foundation Model for Multimodal AI Agents
- Policy & Safety
- - (00:47:32) Demonstrating specification gaming in reasoning models
  - (00:51:03) Emergent Misalignment: Narrow finetuning can produce broadly misaligned LLMs
5 March 2025, 4:29 am
1 hour 48 minutes

#200 - ChatGPT Roadmap, Musk OpenAI Bid, Model Tampering
Our 200th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!
Recorded on 02/14/2025

Join our brand new Discord here! https://discord.gg/nTyezGSKwP

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 announces plans to unify their model offerings, moving away from multiple separate models (GPT-4, Claude, etc.) toward a single unified intelligence system, with free users getting "standard intelligence" and Plus subscribers accessing "higher intelligence" levels.
- Adobe launches their Sora-rivaling AI video generator with 1080p output and 5-second clips, emphasizing production-ready content for films and introducing new pricing tiers through Firefly subscriptions at $10-30 per month.
- Elon Musk and a consortium offer $97.4 billion to acquire OpenAI's nonprofit entity, potentially complicating the company's transition to a for-profit structure, though Sam Altman quickly dismissed the offer's viability.
- TSMC implements stricter chip sales restrictions to China, requiring government-approved third-party packaging houses for chips using 16nm and below processes, aligning with US export control measures and affecting major tech companies like Nvidia and AMD.
Timestamps + Links:
- (00:00:00) Intro / Banter
- (00:01:25) Response to listener comments
- (00:02:41) News Preview
- Tools & Apps
  - (00:03:58) Adobe’s Sora rivalling AI video generator is now available for everyone
  - (00:09:45) OpenAI lays out plans for GPT-5
  - (00:16:42) OpenAI is rethinking how AI models handle controversial topics
  - (00:21:28) Perplexity AI launches new ultra-fast AI search model Sonar
  - (00:23:45) YouTube AI updates include auto dubbing expansion, age ID tech, and more
- Applications & Business
  - (00:24:37) Musk-led group makes $97.4 billion bid for control of OpenAI
  - (00:34:32) Anthropic’s next major AI model could arrive within weeks
  - (00:39:09) AI chip startup Groq secures $1.5 billion commitment from Saudi Arabia
  - (00:42:15) OpenAI reportedly planning to build its first AI chip in 2026
- Projects & Open Source
- Research & Advancements
  - (00:58:24) Model Tampering Attacks Enable More Rigorous Evaluations of LLM Capabilities
  - (01:04:24) Distillation Scaling Laws
  - (01:10:06) Matryoshka Quantization
  - (01:17:47) How much AI compute exists globally? How rapidly is it growing?
- Policy & Safety
  - (01:21:29) US and UK refuse to sign summit declaration on AI safety
  - (01:25:43) Utility Engineering: Analyzing and Controlling Emergent Value Systems in AIs
  - (01:34:40) xAI Risk Management Framework (Draft)
  - (01:39:59) TSMC bans more chip sales to China due to stricter U.S. export sanctions
- (01:42:38) Listener requested topic
- Synthetic Media & Art
  - (01:43:48) Thomson Reuters Wins First Major AI Copyright Case in the US
  - (01:44:46) Scarlett Johansson calls for deepfake ban after AI video goes viral
- (01:45:55) Outro
17 February 2025, 5:34 pm
1 hour 37 minutes

#199 - OpenAI's 03-mini, Gemini Thinking, Deep Research, s1
Our 199th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!
Recorded on 02/09/2025

Join our brand new Discord here! https://discord.gg/nTyezGSKwP

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 deep research feature capability launched, allowing models to generate detailed reports after prolonged inference periods, competing directly with Google's Gemini 2.0 reasoning models.
- France and UAE jointly announce plans to build a massive AI data center in France, aiming to become a competitive player within the AI infrastructure landscape.
- Mistral introduces a mobile app, broadening its consumer AI lineup amidst market skepticism about its ability to compete against larger firms like OpenAI and Google.
- Anthropic unveils 'Constitutional Classifiers,' a method showing strong defenses against universal jailbreaks; they also launched a $20K challenge to find weaknesses.

Timestamps + Links:
- (00:00:00) Intro / Banter
- (00:02:27) News Preview
- (00:03:28) Response to listener comments
- Tools & Apps
  - (00:08:01) OpenAI now reveals more of its o3-mini model’s thought process
  - (00:16:03) Google’s Gemini app adds access to ‘thinking’ AI models
  - (00:21:04) OpenAI Unveils A.I. Tool That Can Do Research Online
  - (00:31:09) Mistral releases its AI assistant on iOS and Android
  - (00:36:17) AI music startup Riffusion launches its service in public beta
  - (00:39:11) Pikadditions by Pika Labs lets users seamlessly insert objects into videos
- Applications & Business
- Projects & Open Source
- Research & Advancements
  - (01:10:34) LIMO: Less is More for Reasoning
  - (01:16:39) s1: Simple test-time scaling
  - (01:19:17) ZebraLogic: On the Scaling Limits of LLMs for Logical Reasoning
  - (01:23:55) Streaming DiLoCo with overlapping communication: Towards a Distributed Free Lunch
- Policy & Safety
(01:33:16) Anthropic offers $20,000 to whoever can jailbreak its new AI safety system
12 February 2025, 7:47 am
1 hour 37 minutes

#198 - DeepSeek R1 & Janus, Qwen2.5, OpenAI Agents
Our 198th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!
Recorded on 01/31/2024

Join our brand new Discord here! https://discord.gg/nTyezGSKwP

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:

- DeepSeek releases R1, a competitive AI model comparable to OpenAI’s O1, leading to market unrest and significant drops in tech stocks, including a 17% plunge in NVIDIA's stock.
- OpenAI launches Operator to facilitate agentic computer use, while facing competition from new releases by DeepSeek and Quen, with applications seeing rapid adoption.
- President Trump revokes the Biden administration's executive order on AI, signaling a shift in AI policy and deregulation efforts.
- Taiwanese government clears TSMC to produce advanced 2-nanometer chip technology abroad, aiming to strengthen global semiconductor supply amidst geopolitical tensions.

If you would like to become a sponsor for the newsletter, podcast, or both, please fill out this form.

Timestamps + Links:
- (00:00:00) Intro / Banter
- (00:03:01) Response to listener comments
- Projects & Open Source
  - (00:06:26) DeepSeek-R1: Incentivizing Reasoning Capability in LLMs via Reinforcement Learning
  - (00:30:25) Viral AI company DeepSeek releases new image model family
  - (00:34:07) Qwen2.5-1M Technical Report
  - (00:38:32) Alibaba’s Qwen team releases AI models that can control PCs and phones
- Tools & Apps
  - (00:42:09) OpenAI launches Operator, an AI agent that performs tasks autonomously
  - (00:47:37) DeepSeek reaches No. 1 on US Play Store
  - (00:52:17) Alibaba rolled out Qwen Chat v0.2 and Qwen2.5-1M model
  - (00:53:50) Perplexity launches US-hosted DeepSeek R1, hints at EU hosting soon
  - (00:55:31) Apple is pulling its AI-generated notifications for news after generating fake headlines
  - (00:59:00) French AI ‘Lucie’ looks très chic, but keeps getting answers wrong
- Applications & Business
- Policy & Safety
- (01:33:01) Outro
2 February 2025, 8:18 pm
2 hours 4 minutes

AI Computing Hardware - Past, Present, and Future
A special one-off episode with a deep dive into the past, present, and future of how computer hardware makes AI possible.

Join our brand new Discord here! https://discord.gg/nTyezGSKwP

Read out our text newsletter and comment on the podcast at https://lastweekin.ai/.

Sponsors:
- The Generator - An interdisciplinary AI lab empowering innovators from all fields to bring visionary ideas to life by harnessing the capabilities of artificial intelligence.
In this episode:

- Google and Mistral sign deals with AP and AFP, respectively, to deliver up-to-date news through their AI platforms.
- ChatGPT introduces a tasks feature for reminders and to-dos, positioning itself more as a personal assistant.
- Synthesia raises $180 million to enhance its AI video platform for generating videos of human avatars.
- New U.S. guidelines restrict exporting AI chips to various countries, impacting Nvidia and other tech firms.

If you would like to become a sponsor for the newsletter, podcast, or both, please fill out this form.

Timestamps:
- 00:00:00 Introduction
- 00:03:08 Historical Recap: Early AI and Hardware
- 00:11:51 The Rise of GPUs and Deep Learning
- 00:15:39 Scaling Laws and the Evolution of AI Models
- 00:24:05 The Bitter Lesson and the Future of AI Compute
- 00:25:58 Moore's Law and Huang's Law
- 00:30:12 Memory and Logic in AI Hardware
- 00:34:53 Challenges in AI Hardware: The Memory Wall
- 00:37:08 The Role of GPUs in Modern AI
- 00:42:27 Fitting Neural Nets in GPUs
- 00:48:04 Batch Sizes and GPU Utilization
- 00:52:47 Parallelism in AI Models
- 00:55:53 Matrix Multiplications and GPUs
- 00:59:57 Understanding B200 and GB200
- 01:05:41 Data Center Hierarchy
- 01:13:42 High Bandwidth Memory (HBM)
- 01:16:45 Fabrication and Packaging
- 01:20:17 The Complexity of Semiconductor Fabrication
- 01:24:34 Understanding Process Nodes
- 01:28:26 The Art of Fabrication
- 01:33:17 The Role of Yield in Fabrication
- 01:35:47 The Photolithography Process
- 01:40:38 Deep Ultraviolet Lithography (DUV)
- 01:43:58 Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography (EUV)
- 01:51:46 Export Controls and Their Impact
- 01:54:22 The Rise of Custom AI Hardware
- 02:00:10 The Future of AI and Hardware
29 January 2025, 8:02 am
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