muckrAIkers

The Enemy of My Enemy is Still a Corporation

Jacob Haimes and Igor Krawczuk — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 11:00:00 -0600

In this episode, Jacob and Igor break down the DoD vs. Anthropic standoff, tracing how Claude's use in military operations led to Anthropic being designated a supply chain security risk. Perhaps more importantly, why did Anthropic choose to take a stand now, and what can that tell us about the corporations behavior moving forward. The investigation is used as a case study in how to read the real motivations behind big institutions: intrinsic values, rational self-interest, and realpolitik.

Chapters

(00:00) - Introduction
(00:44) - DoD-Anthropic Standoff
(15:08) - 3 Buckets of Motivation
(35:39) - How to Read What They're Actually Doing
(44:04) - Is This Designation Even Real?
(53:39) - Recap (Pragmatist's Playbook)

Critical Links
Below are the most important links for this episode. For more, visit the episode page on Kairos.fm.

Ed Zitron subtack article - The AI Bubble Is An Information War
TechPolicy.Press article - A Timeline of the Anthropic-Pentagon Dispute
TechPolicy.Press podcast episode - How to Think About the Anthropic-Pentagon Dispute
BBC news article - Anthropic vows to sue Pentagon over supply chain risk label
The Guardian article - AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is far more worrying
Palantir YouTube video - Multi-Domain AI: The Future of Command and Control
Into AI Safety podcast episode - Drawing Red Lines w/ Su Cizem

The Mythical AI Bear

Jacob Haimes and Igor Krawczuk — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 12:00:00 -0600

This week, Jacob and Igor dissect the "mythical AI bear," the strawman version of AI criticism that gets thrown around in tech discourse. Working through a viral blog post that typifies the genre, they examine how legitimate concerns about code quality, labor displacement, intellectual property, and the erosion of craft get flattened into caricature. Plus: Sam Altman writes ten paragraphs about how unbothered he is by an ad.

Chapters

(00:00) - Introduction
(00:30) - Altman's Super Bowl Meltdown
(03:11) - What is "The Bear"?
(06:41) - But You Have No Idea What The Code Is
(15:44) - But The Craft, But The Mediocrity, But It'll Never Be AGI
(24:43) - But They Take Our Jobs & But The Plagiarism
(31:21) - Stochastic Parrots & Mythical Bears
(42:34) - Outro

Critical Links
Below are the most important links for this episode. For more, visit the episode page on Kairos.fm.

Big Think article - The rise of AI denialism
Fly.io blogpost - My AI Skeptic Friends Are All Nuts
antirez blogpost - Don't fall into the anti-AI hype
Emily Bender blogpost - Resistance Isn't Denialism
Cory Doctorow blogpost - Reverse centaurs are the answer to the AI paradox
Washington Post article - The AI boom is so huge it's causing shortages everywhere else
Business Insider article - Veteran investor Jeremy Grantham says AI is 'obviously a bubble'
Ipsos survey - Google / Ipsos Multi-Country AI Survey 2026
Understanding AI Substack post - AI skeptics and AI boosters are both wrong

Big Tech Plans to Move Fast and Break Democracy

Jacob Haimes and Igor Krawczuk — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 14:00:00 -0700

We're talking about developments in AI while those in power have unapologetically revealed their true fascist intensions; are we spending our time in the right way? Igor and I discuss the importance of shining a light on the techno-authoritarians who have played a very significant role in current state-of-the-world.

While we discuss the murders of Nicole Good and Alex Pretti during this episode, it's important that we also acknowledge the many marginalized people who have died as a result of ICE's behavior, and they same level of outcry didn't happen. Six additional individuals died in ICE custody under suspicious circumstances between January 1st and 25th of 2026: Victor Manuel Díaz, Geraldo Lunas Campos, Luis Gustavo Núñez Cáceres, Luis Beltrán Yáñez-Cruz, Parady La, and Heber Sánchez Domínguez.

Chapters

(00:00) - | Introduction
(03:57) - | The Authoritarian Stack
(08:33) - | Palantir & Theil-Government Consolidation
(13:44) - | Move Fast & Break Everything
(23:14) - | Fascism in the US & Starving the Beast
(39:48) - | Finding Local Opportunities for Action

Critical Links
Below are the most important links for this episode. For more, visit the episode page on Kairos.fm.

The Authoritarian Stack website
Project 2025 Observer website
EFF report - ICE Using Palantir Tool Feeds on Medicaid Data
The Guardian article - Eight people have died in dealings with ICE so far in 2026. These are their stories
Indivisible website
Distributed AI Research Institute projects
EAAMO website - Mechanism Design for Social Good
Carlos Maza video - How To Be Hopeless

AI Skeptic PWNED by Facts and Logic

Jacob Haimes and Igor Krawczuk — Mon, 12 Jan 2026 09:00:00 -0700

Igor shares a significant shift in his perspective on AI coding tools after experiencing the latest Claude Code release. While he's been the stronger AI skeptic between the two of us, recent developments have shown him genuine utility in specific coding tasks, but this doesn't validate the hype or change the fundamental critiques.

We discuss what "rote tasks" are and why they're now automatable with enough investment, the difference between genuine utility and AGI claims, and why this update actually impacts our bubble analysis. We explore how massive investment has finally produced something useful for a narrow domain, but it doesn't mean the technology is generalizable or that AGI is real.

Chapters

(00:00) - | Introduction
(05:07) - | What Changed Igor’s Mind
(18:27) - | Rote Tasks Explained
(23:31) - | How Does This Impact our Bubble Analysis?
(30:48) - | AGI Is Still BS
(34:07) - | Externalities Remain Unchanged
(37:49) - | Final Thoughts & Outro

Links

Related muckrAIkers episode - Tech Bros Love AI Waifus

Bubble Talk

OfficeChai startup - OpenAI Hasn’t Completed A Successful Full-Scale Pretraining Run Since GPT-4o In May 2024, Says SemiAnalysis
Vechron report - Anthropic Prepares for Potential 2026 IPO in Bid to Rival OpenAI
YCombinator Forum post on AI crash
YCombinator Forum post on OpenAI adopting Anthropic's "skills"
YCombinator Forum post on OpenAI rumors
YCombinator Forum post on OpenAI add suggestions

Other Sources

LinkedIn post discussing an agentic coding vibe shift
Executive Order - Ensuring a National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence
Inside Tech Law blogpost - Germany delivers landmark copyright ruling against OpenAI: What it means for AI and IP
NeurIPS 2025 paper - Ascent Fails to Forget
NBER working paper - Large Language Models, Small Labor Market Effects
Dwarkesh Podcast blogpost - RL is even more information inefficient than you thought

Tech Bros Love AI Waifus

Jacob Haimes and Igor Krawczuk — Mon, 15 Dec 2025 09:00:00 -0700

OpenAI is pivoting to porn while public sentiment turns decisively against AI. Pew Research shows Americans are now concerned over excited by a 2:1 margin. We trace how we got here: broken promises of cancer cures replaced by addiction mechanics and expensive APIs. Meanwhile, data centers are hiding a near-recession, straining power grids, and literally breaking your household appliances. Drawing parallels to the 1970s AI winter, we argue the bubble is shaking and needs to pop now, before it becomes another 2008. The good news? Grassroots resistance works. Protests have already blocked $64 billion in data center projects.

NOTE: The project that we cite for the $64 billion blockage is actually a pro-data-center campaign. The numbers still seem ok, but it's worth being aware of.

Chapters

(00:00) - - Introduction
(06:45) - - The Addiction Business Model
(10:15) - - Public Sentiment Data
(22:45) - - Data Centers and Infrastructure Problems
(36:30) - - The Bubble Discussion
(44:36) - - Closing Thoughts & Outro

Links
Public Sentiment on AI

Pew Research report - How People Around the World View AI
Pew Research report - How the U.S. Public and AI Experts View Artificial Intelligence
Pew Research report - How Americans View AI and Its Impact on People and Society
University of Toronto report - Trust, attitudes and use of artificial intelligence: A global study 2025
Melbourne Business School report - Key findings on public attitudes towards AI
The Washington Post article - Americans have become more pessimistic about AI. Why?
The New York Times article - From Mexico to Ireland, Fury Mounts Over a Global A.I. Frenzy
The Guardian article - ‘It shows such a laziness’: why I refuse to date someone who uses ChatGPT
The Register article - OpenAI's ChatGPT is so popular that almost no one will pay for it

AI and Claims of Curing Cancer

Rachel Thomas, PhD blogpost - “AI will cure cancer” misunderstands both AI and medicine
The Atlantic article - OpenAI Wants to Cure Cancer. So Why Did It Make a Web Browser?
Independent article - ChatGPT boss predicts when AI could cure cancer
The Atlantic article - AI Executives Promise Cancer Cures. Here’s the Reality

AI Porn and the Addiction Economy

Forbes article - ChatGPT Will Allow ‘Erotica’ After Easing Mental Health Restrictions, Sam Altman Says
The Addiction Economy website
PPC article - OpenAI is staffing up to turn ChatGPT into an ad platform
Tom Nicholas video - Vape-o-nomics: Why Everything is Addictive Now

AI Bubble

Fast Company article - AI isn’t replacing jobs. AI spending is
Pivot to AI article - The finance press finally starts talking about the ‘AI bubble’
Fortune article - Without data centers, GDP growth was 0.1% in the first half of 2025, Harvard economist says
The Atlantic article - Just How Bad Would an AI Bubble Be?
The New York Times article - Debt Has Entered the A.I. Boom
Will Lockett's Newsletter article - AI Pullback Has Officially Started
Reuters article - Michael Burry of 'Big Short' fame is closing his hedge fund
Business Insider article - The guy who shorted Enron has a warning about the AI boom

Datacenters

Bloomberg article - AI Needs So Much Power, It’s Making Yours Worse
Data Center Watch report - $64 billion of data center projects have been blocked or delayed amid local opposition
More Perfect Union video - We Found the Hidden Cost of Data Centers. It's in Your Electric Bill
DataCenter Knowledge article - Why Communities Are Protesting Data Centers – And How the Industry Can Respond

Fighting Back

Knight First Amendment Institute essay - AI as Normal Technology
Pranksters vs. Autocrats chapter - Laughtivism: The Secret Ingredient
SPSP article - Playing with Power: Humor as Everyday Resistance
Blood in the Machine article - The Luddite Renaissance is in full swing

AI Safety for Who?

Jacob Haimes and Igor Krawczuk — Mon, 13 Oct 2025 09:00:00 -0600

Jacob and Igor argue that AI safety is hurting users, not helping them. The techniques used to make chatbots "safe" and "aligned," such as instruction tuning and RLHF, anthropomorphize AI systems such they take advantage of our instincts as social beings. At the same time, Big Tech companies push these systems for "wellness" while dodging healthcare liability, causing real harms today We discuss what actual safety would look like, drawing on self-driving car regulations.

Chapters

(00:00) - Introduction & AI Investment Insanity
(01:43) - The Problem with AI Safety
(08:16) - Anthropomorphizing AI & Its Dangers
(26:55) - Mental Health, Wellness, and AI
(39:15) - Censorship, Bias, and Dual Use
(44:42) - Solutions, Community Action & Final Thoughts

Links

AI Ethics & Philosophy

Foreign affairs article - The Cost of the AGI Delusion
Nature article - Principles alone cannot guarantee ethical AI
Xeiaso blog post - Who Do Assistants Serve?
Argmin article - The Banal Evil of AI Safety
AI Panic News article - The Rationality Trap

AI Model Bias, Failures, and Impacts

BBC news article - AI Image Generation Issues
The New York Times article - Google Gemini German Uniforms Controversy
The Verge article - Google Gemini's Embarrassing AI Pictures
NPR article - Grok, Elon Musk, and Antisemitic/Racist Content
AccelerAId blog post - How AI Nudges are Transforming Up-and Cross-Selling
AI Took My Job website

AI Mental Health & Safety Concerns

Euronews article - AI Chatbot Tragedy
Popular Mechanics article - OpenAI and Psychosis
Psychology Today article - The Emerging Problem of AI Psychosis
Rolling Stone article - AI Spiritual Delusions Destroying Human Relationships
The New York Times article - AI Chatbots and Delusions

Guidelines, Governance, and Censorship

Preprint - R1dacted: Investigating Local Censorship in DeepSeek's R1 Language Model
Minds & Machines article - The Ethics of AI Ethics: An Evaluation of Guidelines
SSRN paper - Instrument Choice in AI Governance
Anthropic announcement - Claude Gov Models for U.S. National Security Customers
Anthropic documentation - Claude's Constitution
Reuters investigation - Meta AI Chatbot Guidelines
Swiss Federal Council consultation - Swiss AI Consultation Procedures
Grok Prompts Github Repo
Simon Willison blog post - Grok 4 Heavy

The Co-opting of Safety

Jacob Haimes and Igor Krawczuk — Thu, 21 Aug 2025 09:00:00 -0600

We dig into how the concept of AI "safety" has been co-opted and weaponized by tech companies. Starting with examples like Mecha-Hitler Grok, we explore how real safety engineering differs from AI "alignment," the myth of the alignment tax, and why this semantic confusion matters for actual safety.

(00:00) - Intro
(00:21) - Mecha-Hitler Grok
(10:07) - "Safety"
(19:40) - Under-specification
(53:56) - This time isn't different
(01:01:46) - Alignment Tax myth
(01:17:37) - Actually making AI safer

Links

JMLR article - Underspecification Presents Challenges for Credibility in Modern Machine Learning
Trail of Bits paper - Towards Comprehensive Risk Assessments and Assurance of AI-Based Systems
SSRN paper - Uniqueness Bias: Why It Matters, How to Curb It

Additional Referenced Papers

NeurIPS paper - Safetywashing: Do AI Safety Benchmarks Actually Measure Safety Progress?
ICML paper - AI Control: Improving Safety Despite Intentional Subversion
ICML paper - DarkBench: Benchmarking Dark Patterns in Large Language Models
OSF preprint - Current Real-World Use of Large Language Models for Mental Health
Anthropic preprint - Training a Helpful and Harmless Assistant with Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback

Inciting Examples

ars Technica article - US government agency drops Grok after MechaHitler backlash, report says
The Guardian article - Musk’s AI Grok bot rants about ‘white genocide’ in South Africa in unrelated chats
BBC article - Update that made ChatGPT 'dangerously' sycophantic pulled

Other Sources

London Daily article - UK AI Safety Institute Rebrands as AI Security Institute to Focus on Crime and National Security
Vice article - Prominent AI Philosopher and ‘Father’ of Longtermism Sent Very Racist Email to a 90s Philosophy Listserv
LessWrong blogpost - "notkilleveryoneism" sounds dumb (see comments)
EA Forum blogpost - An Overview of the AI Safety Funding Situation
Book by Dmitry Chernov and Didier Sornette - Man-made Catastrophes and Risk Information Concealment
Euronews article - OpenAI adds mental health safeguards to ChatGPT, saying chatbot has fed into users’ ‘delusions’
Pleias website
Wikipedia page on Jaywalking

AI, Reasoning or Rambling?

Jacob Haimes and Igor Krawczuk — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 09:00:00 -0600

In this episode, we redefine AI's "reasoning" as mere rambling, exposing the "illusion of thinking" and "Potemkin understanding" in current models. We contrast the classical definition of reasoning (requiring logic and consistency) with Big Tech's new version, which is a generic statement about information processing. We explain how Large Rambling Models generate extensive, often irrelevant, rambling traces that appear to improve benchmarks, largely due to best-of-N sampling and benchmark gaming.

Words and definitions actually matter! Carelessness leads to misplaced investments and an overestimation of systems that are currently just surprisingly useful autocorrects.

(00:00) - Intro
(00:40) - OBB update and Meta's talent acquisition
(03:09) - What are rambling models?
(04:25) - Definitions and polarization
(09:50) - Logic and consistency
(17:00) - Why does this matter?
(21:40) - More likely explanations
(35:05) - The "illusion of thinking" and task complexity
(39:07) - "Potemkin understanding" and surface-level recall
(50:00) - Benchmark gaming and best-of-n sampling
(55:40) - Costs and limitations
(58:24) - Claude's anecdote and the Vending Bench
(01:03:05) - Definitional switch and implications
(01:10:18) - Outro

Links

Apple paper - The Illusion of Thinking
ICML 2025 paper - Potemkin Understanding in Large Language Models
Preprint - Large Language Monkeys: Scaling Inference Compute with Repeated Sampling

Theoretical understanding

Max M. Schlereth Manuscript - The limits of AGI part II
Preprint - (How) Do Reasoning Models Reason?
Preprint - A Little Depth Goes a Long Way: The Expressive Power of Log-Depth Transformers
NeurIPS 2024 paper - How Far Can Transformers Reason? The Globality Barrier and Inductive Scratchpad

Empirical explanations

Preprint - How Do Large Language Monkeys Get Their Power (Laws)?
Andon Labs Preprint - Vending-Bench: A Benchmark for Long-Term Coherence of Autonomous Agents
LeapLab, Tsinghua University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University paper - Does Reinforcement Learning Really Incentivize Reasoning Capacity
Preprint - RL in Name Only? Analyzing the Structural Assumptions in RL post-training for LLMs
Preprint - Mind The Gap: Deep Learning Doesn't Learn Deeply
Preprint - Measuring AI Ability to Complete Long Tasks
Preprint - GSM-Symbolic: Understanding the Limitations of Mathematical Reasoning in Large Language Models

Other sources

Zuck's Haul webpage - Meta's talent acquisition tracker
- Hacker News discussion - Opinions from the AI community
Interconnects blogpost - The rise of reasoning machines
Anthropic blog - Project Vend: Can Claude run a small shop?

One Big Bad Bill

Jacob Haimes and Igor Krawczuk — Mon, 23 Jun 2025 10:00:00 -0600

In this episode, we break down Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill" and its dystopian AI provisions: automated fraud detection systems, centralized citizen databases, military AI integration, and a 10-year moratorium blocking all state AI regulation. We explore the historical parallels with authoritarian data consolidation and why this represents a fundamental shift away from limited government principles once held by US conservatives.

(00:00) - Intro
(01:13) - Bill, general overview
(05:14) - Bill, AI overview
(07:54) - Medicaid fraud detection systems
(11:20) - Bias in AI Systems and Ethical Concerns
(17:58) - Centralization of data
(30:04) - Military integration of AI
(37:05) - Tax incentives for development
(40:57) - Regulatory moratorium
(47:58) - One big bad authoritarian regime

Links

Congress page on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act
NYMag article - Republicans Admit They Didn’t Even Read Their Big Beautiful Bill
Everything is Horrible Blogpost - They Did Vote For This (GOP House Edition)

Authoritarianism

Historical context
- Holocaust Encyclopedia article - Gleichschaltung: Coordinating the Nazi State
- Wikipedia article - 1943 Amsterdam civil registry office bombing
- Wikipedia article - Four Ds
Conservative leaning, pro-privacy, anti-government
- Data Governance Hub blogpost - Review and Literature Guide of Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Dataset”
- Cato Institute blogpost - If You Value Privacy, Resist Any Form of National ID Cards
- American Enterprise Intitute blogpost - The Dangerous Road to a “Master File”—Why Linking Government Databases Is a Terrible Idea
- EFF blogpost - The Dangers of Consolidating All Government Information
ACLU against national ID cards
- ACLU main page on national ID cards
- ACLU blogpost - National Identification Cards: Why Does the ACLU Oppose a National I.D. System?
- ACLU blogpost - 5 Problems with National ID Cards
Inherent unfairness of ML
- Lighthouse Reports investigation - The Limits of Ethical AI
- Lighthouse Reports investigation - Suspicion Machines
- Amazon Science publication - Bias preservation in machine learning: The legality of fairness metrics under EU non-discrimination law
- Michigan Technology Law Review article - The Unfairness of Fair Machine Learning: Levelling down and strict egalitarianism by default
- Wired article - Health Care Bias Is Dangerous. But So Are ‘Fairness’ Algorithms

Military

WallStreet Journal article - The Army’s Newest Recruits: Tech Execs From Meta, OpenAI and More
Trump executive order - Unleashing American Drone Dominance
Anthropic press release - Claude Gov Models for U.S. National Security Customers

Moratorium on State AI Regulation

TechPolicy.Press article - The State AI Laws Likeliest To Be Blocked by a Moratorium
Forbes article - Colorado’s AI Law Still Stands After Update Effort Fails

Other Sources

KPMG report - Incentives and credits tax provisions in “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”
The Register article - Trump team leaks AI plans in public GitHub repository
WallStreet Journal article - To Feed Power-Wolfing AI, Lawmakers Are Embracing Nuclear
CBS Austin article - IRS direct file program exceeded its expectations but faces uncertain future

Breaking Down the Economics of AI

Jacob Haimes and Igor Krawczuk — Mon, 26 May 2025 10:00:00 -0600

Jacob and Igor tackle the wild claims about AI's economic impact by examining three main clusters of arguments: automating expensive tasks like programming, removing "cost centers" like call centers and corporate art, and claims of explosive growth. They dig into the actual data, debunk the hype, and explain why most productivity claims don't hold up in practice. Plus: MIT denounces a paper with fabricated data, and Grok randomly promotes white genocide myths.

(00:00) - Recording date + intro
(00:52) - MIT denounces paper
(04:09) - Grok's white genocide
(06:23) - Butthole convergence
(07:13) - AI and the economy
(14:50) - Automating profit centers
(29:46) - Removing the last cost centers
(47:16) - "This time is different" (explosive growth)
(57:55) - Alpha Evolve, optimization, and slippage

Links

University of Chicago working paper - Large Language Models, Small Labor Market Effects
OECD working paper - Miracle or Myth? Assessing the macroeconomic productivity gains from Artificial Intelligence
Epoch AI blogpost - Explosive Growth from AI: A Review of the Arguments
Business Insider article - Anthropic CEO: AI Will Be Writing 90% of Code in 3 to 6 Months
Preprint - Transformative AGI by 2043 is <1% likely

Automating profit centers

Pivot to AI blogpost - If AI is so good at coding … where are the open source contributions?
Ben Evans' Mastodon post - "Show me the pull requests"
NY Times article - Your A.I. Radiologist Will Not Be With You Soon
FastCompany article - More companies are adopting 'AI-first' strategies. Here's how it could impact the environment
Forbes article - Business Tech News: Shopify CEO Says AI First Before Employees
Newsroom article - IBM Study: CEOs Double Down on AI While Navigating Enterprise Hurdles
PNAS research article - Evidence of a social evaluation penalty for using AI
Ars Technica article - AI use damages professional reputation, study suggests

Removing cost centers

The Register article - Anthopic's law firm blames Claude hallucinations for errors
Fortune article - Klarna plans to hire humans again, as new landmark survey reveals most AI projects fail to deliver
Wikipedia article - The Market for Lemons

AlphaEvolve

Deepmind press release - AlphaEvolve: A Gemini-powered coding agent for designing advanced algorithms
Deepmind white paper - AlphaEvolve: A coding agent for scientific and algorithmic discovery

Off Topic

VelvetShark blogpost - Why do AI company logos look like buttholes?
MIT Economics press release - Assuring an accurate research record
Pivot to AI blogpost - How to make a splash in AI economics: fake your data
Pivot to AI blogpost - Even Elon Musk can’t make Grok claim a ‘white genocide’ in South Africa

DeepSeek: 2 Months Out

Jacob Haimes and Igor Krawczuk — Wed, 09 Apr 2025 09:10:11 -0600

DeepSeek has been out for over 2 months now, and things have begun to settle down. We take this opportunity to contextualize the developments that have occurred in its wake, both within the AI industry and the world economy. As systems get more "agentic" and users are willing to spend increasing amounts of time waiting for their outputs, the value of supposed "reasoning" models continues to be peddled by AI system developers, but does the data really back these claims?

Check out our DeepSeek minisode for a snappier overview!

EPISODE RECORDED 2025.03.30

(00:40) - DeepSeek R1 recap
(02:46) - What makes it new?
(08:53) - What is reasoning?
(14:51) - Limitations of reasoning models (why we hate reasoning)
(31:16) - Claims about R1 training on Open AI
(37:30) - “Deep Research”
(49:13) - Developments and drama in the AI industry
(56:26) - Proposed economic value
(01:14:20) - US government involvement
(01:23:28) - OpenAI uses MCP
(01:28:15) - Outro

Links

DeepSeek website
DeepSeek paper
DeepSeek docs - Models and Pricing
DeepSeek repo - 3FS

Understanding DeepSeek/DeepResearch

Explainers
- Language Models & Co. article - The Illustrated DeepSeek-R1
- Towards Data Science article - DeepSeek-V3 Explained 1: Multi-head Latent Attention
- Jina.ai article - A Practical Guide to Implementing DeepSearch/DeepResearch
- Han, Not Solo blogpost - The Differences between Deep Research, Deep Research, and Deep Research
Analysis and Research
- Preprint - Understanding R1-Zero-Like Training: A Critical Perspective
- Blogpost - There May Not be Aha Moment in R1-Zero-like Training — A Pilot Study
- Preprint - Large Language Monkeys: Scaling Inference Compute with Repeated Sampling
- Preprint - Chain-of-Thought Reasoning In The Wild Is Not Always Faithful

Fallout coverage

TechCrunch article - OpenAI calls DeepSeek 'state-controlled,' calls for bans on 'PRC-produced' models
The Verge article - OpenAI has evidence that its models helped train China’s DeepSeek
Interesting Engineer article - $6M myth: DeepSeek’s true AI cost is 216x higher at $1.3B, research reveals
Ars Technica article - Microsoft now hosts AI model accused of copying OpenAI data
The Signal article - Nvidia loses nearly $600 billion in DeepSeek crash
Yahoo Finance article - The 'Magnificent 7' stocks are having their worst quarter in more than 2 years
Reuters article - Microsoft pulls back from more data center leases in US and Europe, analysts say

US governance

National Law Review article - Three States Ban DeepSeek Use on State Devices and Networks
CNN article - US lawmakers want to ban DeepSeek from government devices
House bill - No DeepSeek on Government Devices Act
Senate bill - Decoupling America's Artificial Intelligence Capabilities from China Act of 2025

Leaderboards

aider
LiveBench
LM Arena
Konwinski Prize
Preprint - SWE-Bench+: Enhanced Coding Benchmark for LLMs
Cybernews article - OpenAI study proves LLMs still behind human engineers in over 1400 real-world tasks

Other References

Anthropic report - The Anthropic Economic Index
METR Report - Measuring AI Ability to Complete Long Tasks
The Information article - OpenAI Discusses Building Its First Data Center for Storage
- Deepmind report backing up this idea
TechCrunch article - OpenAI adopts rival Anthropic's standard for connecting AI models to data
Reuters article - OpenAI, Meta in talks with Reliance for AI partnerships, The Information reports
2024 AI Index report
NDTV article - Ghibli-Style Images To Memes: White House Embraces Alt-Right Online Culture
Elk post on DOGE and AI

DeepSeek Minisode

Jacob Haimes and Igor Krawczuk — Mon, 10 Feb 2025 10:00:00 -0700

DeepSeek R1 has taken the world by storm, causing a stock market crash and prompting further calls for export controls within the US. Since this story is still very much in development, with follow-up investigations and calls for governance being released almost daily, we thought it best to hold of for a little while longer to be able to tell the whole story. Nonetheless, it's a big story, so we provide a brief overview of all that's out there so far.

(00:00) - Recording date
(00:04) - Intro
(00:37) - DeepSeek drop and reactions
(04:27) - Export controls
(08:05) - Skepticism and uncertainty
(14:12) - Outro

Links

DeepSeek website
DeepSeek paper
Reuters article - What is DeepSeek and why is it disrupting the AI sector?

Fallout coverage

The Verge article - OpenAI has evidence that its models helped train China’s DeepSeek
The Signal article - Nvidia loses nearly $600 billion in DeepSeek crash
CNN article - US lawmakers want to ban DeepSeek from government devices
Fortune article - Meta is reportedly scrambling ‘war rooms’ of engineers to figure out how DeepSeek’s AI is beating everyone else at a fraction of the price
Dario Amodei's blogpost - On DeepSeek and Export Controls
SemiAnalysis article - DeepSeek Debates
Ars Technica article - Microsoft now hosts AI model accused of copying OpenAI data
Wiz Blogpost - Wiz Research Uncovers Exposed DeepSeek Database Leaking Sensitive Information, Including Chat History

Investigations into "reasoning"

Blogpost - There May Not be Aha Moment in R1-Zero-like Training — A Pilot Study
Preprint - s1: Simple test-time scaling
Preprint - LIMO: Less is More for Reasoning
Blogpost - Reasoning Reflections
Preprint - Token-Hungry, Yet Precise: DeepSeek R1 Highlights the Need for Multi-Step Reasoning Over Speed in MATH

Understanding AI World Models w/ Chris Canal

Jacob Haimes, Igor Krawczuk, and Chris Canal — Mon, 27 Jan 2025 08:00:00 -0700

Chris Canal, co-founder of EquiStamp, joins muckrAIkers as our first ever podcast guest! In this ~3.5 hour interview, we discuss intelligence vs. competencies, the importance of test-time compute, moving goalposts, the orthogonality thesis, and much more.

A seasoned software developer, Chris started EquiStamp as a way to improve our current understanding of model failure modes and capabilities in late 2023. Now a key contractor for METR, EquiStamp evaluates the next generation of LLMs from frontier model developers like OpenAI and Anthropic.

EquiStamp is hiring, so if you're a software developer interested in a fully remote opportunity with flexible working hours, join the EquiStamp Discord server and message Chris directly; oh, and let him know muckrAIkers sent you!

(00:00) - Recording date
(00:05) - Intro
(00:29) - Hot off the press
(02:17) - Introducing Chris Canal
(19:12) - World/risk models
(35:21) - Competencies + decision making power
(42:09) - Breaking models down
(01:05:06) - Timelines, test time compute
(01:19:17) - Moving goalposts
(01:26:34) - Risk management pre-AGI
(01:46:32) - Happy endings
(01:55:50) - Causal chains
(02:04:49) - Appetite for democracy
(02:20:06) - Tech-frame based fallacies
(02:39:56) - Bringing back real capitalism
(02:45:23) - Orthogonality Thesis
(03:04:31) - Why we do this
(03:15:36) - Equistamp!

Links

EquiStamp
Chris's Twitter
METR Paper - RE-Bench: Evaluating frontier AI R&D capabilities of language model agents against human experts
All Trades article - Learning from History: Preventing AGI Existential Risks through Policy by Chris Canal
Better Systems article - The Omega Protocol: Another Manhattan Project

Superintelligence & Commentary

Wikipedia article - Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies by Nick Bostrom
Reflective Altruism article - Against the singularity hypothesis (Part 5: Bostrom on the singularity)
Into AI Safety Interview - Scaling Democracy w/ Dr. Igor Krawczuk

Referenced Sources

Book - Man-made Catastrophes and Risk Information Concealment: Case Studies of Major Disasters and Human Fallibility
Artificial Intelligence Paper - Reward is Enough
Wikipedia article - Capital and Ideology by Thomas Piketty
Wikipedia article - Pantheon

LeCun on AGI

"Won't Happen" - Time article - Meta’s AI Chief Yann LeCun on AGI, Open-Source, and AI Risk
"But if it does, it'll be my research agenda latent state models, which I happen to research" - Meta Platforms Blogpost - I-JEPA: The first AI model based on Yann LeCun’s vision for more human-like AI

Other Sources

Stanford CS Senior Project - Timing Attacks on Prompt Caching in Language Model APIs
TechCrunch article - AI researcher François Chollet founds a new AI lab focused on AGI
White House Fact Sheet - Ensuring U.S. Security and Economic Strength in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
New York Post article - Bay Area lawyer drops Meta as client over CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s ‘toxic masculinity and Neo-Nazi madness’
OpenEdition Academic Review of Thomas Piketty
Neural Processing Letters Paper - A Survey of Encoding Techniques for Signal Processing in Spiking Neural Networks
BFI Working Paper - Do Financial Concerns Make Workers Less Productive?
No Mercy/No Malice article - How to Survive the Next Four Years by Scott Galloway

NeurIPS 2024 Wrapped 🌯

Jacob Haimes and Igor Krawczuk — Mon, 30 Dec 2024 10:00:00 -0700

What happens when you bring over 15,000 machine learning nerds to one city? If your guess didn't include racism, sabotage and scandal, belated epiphanies, a spicy SoLaR panel, and many fantastic research papers, you wouldn't have captured my experience. In this episode we discuss the drama and takeaways from NeurIPS 2024.

Posters available at time of episode preparation can be found on the episode webpage.

EPISODE RECORDED 2024.12.22

(00:00) - Recording date
(00:05) - Intro
(00:44) - Obligatory mentions
(01:54) - SoLaR panel
(18:43) - Test of Time
(24:17) - And now: science!
(28:53) - Downsides of benchmarks
(41:39) - Improving the science of ML
(53:07) - Performativity
(57:33) - NopenAI and Nanthropic
(01:09:35) - Fun/interesting papers
(01:13:12) - Initial takes on o3
(01:18:12) - WorkArena
(01:25:00) - Outro

Links

Note: many workshop papers had not yet been published to arXiv as of preparing this episode, the OpenReview submission page is provided in these cases.

NeurIPS statement on inclusivity
CTOL Digital Solutions article - NeurIPS 2024 Sparks Controversy: MIT Professor's Remarks Ignite "Racism" Backlash Amid Chinese Researchers’ Triumphs
(1/2) NeurIPS Best Paper - Visual Autoregressive Modeling: Scalable Image Generation via Next-Scale Prediction
Visual Autoregressive Model report this link now provides a 404 error
- Don't worry, here it is on archive.is
Reuters article - ByteDance seeks $1.1 mln damages from intern in AI breach case, report says
CTOL Digital Solutions article - NeurIPS Award Winner Entangled in ByteDance's AI Sabotage Accusations: The Two Tales of an AI Genius
Reddit post on Ilya's talk
SoLaR workshop page

Referenced Sources

Harvard Data Science Review article - Data Science at the Singularity
Paper - Reward Reports for Reinforcement Learning
Paper - It's Not What Machines Can Learn, It's What We Cannot Teach
Paper - NeurIPS Reproducibility Program
Paper - A Metric Learning Reality Check

Improving Datasets, Benchmarks, and Measurements

Tutorial video + slides - Experimental Design and Analysis for AI Researchers (I think you need to have attended NeurIPS to access the recording, but I couldn't find a different version)
Paper - BetterBench: Assessing AI Benchmarks, Uncovering Issues, and Establishing Best Practices
Paper - Safetywashing: Do AI Safety Benchmarks Actually Measure Safety Progress?
Paper - A Systematic Review of NeurIPS Dataset Management Practices
Paper - The State of Data Curation at NeurIPS: An Assessment of Dataset Development Practices in the Datasets and Benchmarks Track
Paper - Benchmark Repositories for Better Benchmarking
Paper - Croissant: A Metadata Format for ML-Ready Datasets
Paper - Rethinking the Evaluation of Out-of-Distribution Detection: A Sorites Paradox
Paper - Evaluating Generative AI Systems is a Social Science Measurement Challenge
Paper - Report Cards: Qualitative Evaluation of LLMs

Governance Related

Paper - Towards Data Governance of Frontier AI Models
Paper - Ways Forward for Global AI Benefit Sharing
Paper - How do we warn downstream model providers of upstream risks?
- Unified Model Records tool
Paper - Policy Dreamer: Diverse Public Policy Creation via Elicitation and Simulation of Human Preferences
Paper - Monitoring Human Dependence on AI Systems with Reliance Drills
Paper - On the Ethical Considerations of Generative Agents
Paper - GPAI Evaluation Standards Taskforce: Towards Effective AI Governance
Paper - Levels of Autonomy: Liability in the age of AI Agents

Certified Bangers + Useful Tools

Paper - Model Collapse Demystified: The Case of Regression
Paper - Preference Learning Algorithms Do Not Learn Preference Rankings
LLM Dataset Inference paper + repo
dattri paper + repo
DeTikZify paper + repo

Fun Benchmarks/Datasets

Paloma paper + dataset
RedPajama paper + dataset
Assemblage webpage
WikiDBs webpage
WhodunitBench repo
ApeBench paper + repo
WorkArena++ paper

Other Sources

Paper - The Mirage of Artificial Intelligence Terms of Use Restrictions

OpenAI's o1 System Card, Literally Migraine Inducing

Jacob Haimes and Igor Krawczuk — Sun, 22 Dec 2024 19:00:00 -0700

The idea of model cards, which was introduced as a measure to increase transparency and understanding of LLMs, has been perverted into the marketing gimmick characterized by OpenAI's o1 system card. To demonstrate the adversarial stance we believe is necessary to draw meaning from these press-releases-in-disguise, we conduct a close read of the system card. Be warned, there's a lot of muck in this one.

Note: All figures/tables discussed in the podcast can be found on the podcast website at https://kairos.fm/muckraikers/e009/

(00:00) - Recorded 2024.12.08
(00:54) - Actual intro
(03:00) - System cards vs. academic papers
(05:36) - Starting off sus
(08:28) - o1.continued
(12:23) - Rant #1: figure 1
(18:27) - A diamond in the rough
(19:41) - Hiding copyright violations
(21:29) - Rant #2: Jacob on "hallucinations"
(25:55) - More ranting and "hallucination" rate comparison
(31:54) - Fairness, bias, and bad science comms
(35:41) - System, dev, and user prompt jailbreaking
(39:28) - Chain-of-thought and Rao-Blackwellization
(44:43) - "Red-teaming"
(49:00) - Apollo's bit
(51:28) - METR's bit
(59:51) - Pass@???
(01:04:45) - SWE Verified
(01:05:44) - Appendix bias metrics
(01:10:17) - The muck and the meaning

Links

o1 system card
OpenAI press release collection - 12 Days of OpenAI

Additional o1 Coverage

NIST + AISI [report] - US AISI and UK AISI Joint Pre-Deployment Test
Apollo Research's paper - Frontier Models are Capable of In-context Scheming
VentureBeat article - OpenAI launches full o1 model with image uploads and analysis, debuts ChatGPT Pro
The Atlantic article - The GPT Era Is Already Ending

On Data Labelers

60 Minutes article + video - Labelers training AI say they're overworked, underpaid and exploited by big American tech companies
Reflections article - The hidden health dangers of data labeling in AI development
Privacy International article = Humans in the AI loop: the data labelers behind some of the most powerful LLMs' training datasets

Chain-of-Thought Papers Cited

Paper - Measuring Faithfulness in Chain-of-Thought Reasoning
Paper - Language Models Don't Always Say What They Think: Unfaithful Explanations in Chain-of-Thought Prompting
Paper - On the Hardness of Faithful Chain-of-Thought Reasoning in Large Language Models
Paper - Faithfulness vs. Plausibility: On the (Un)Reliability of Explanations from Large Language Models

Other Mentioned/Relevant Sources

Andy Jones blogpost - Rao-Blackwellization
Paper - Training on the Test Task Confounds Evaluation and Emergence
Paper - Best-of-N Jailbreaking
Research landing page - SWE Bench
Code Competition - Konwinski Prize
Lakera game = Gandalf
Kate Crawford's Atlas of AI
BlueDot Impact's course - Intro to Transformative AI

Unrelated Developments

Cruz's letter to Merrick Garland
AWS News Blog article - Introducing Amazon Nova foundation models: Frontier intelligence and industry leading price performance
BleepingComputer article - Ultralytics AI model hijacked to infect thousands with cryptominer
The Register article - Microsoft teases Copilot Vision, the AI sidekick that judges your tabs
Fox Business article - OpenAI CEO Sam Altman looking forward to working with Trump admin, says US must build best AI infrastructure

How to Safely Handle Your AGI

Jacob Haimes and Igor Krawczuk — Mon, 02 Dec 2024 09:00:00 -0700

While on the campaign trail, Trump made claims about repealing Biden's Executive Order on AI, but what will actually be changed when he gets into office? We take this opportunity to examine policies being discussed or implemented by leading governments around the world.

(00:00) - Intro
(00:29) - Hot off the press
(02:59) - Repealing the AI executive order?
(11:16) - "Manhattan" for AI
(24:33) - EU
(30:47) - UK
(39:27) - Bengio
(44:39) - Comparing EU/UK to USA
(45:23) - China
(51:12) - Taxes
(55:29) - The muck

Links

SFChronicle article - US gathers allies to talk AI safety as Trump's vow to undo Biden's AI policy overshadows their work
Trump's Executive Order on AI (the AI governance executive order at home)
Biden's Executive Order on AI
Congressional report brief which advises a "Manhattan Project for AI"

Non-USA

CAIRNE resource collection on CERN for AI
UK Frontier AI Taskforce report (2023)
International interim report (2024)
Bengio's paper - AI and Catastrophic Risk
Davidad's Safeguarded AI program at ARIA
MIT Technology Review article - Four things to know about China’s new AI rules in 2024
GovInsider article - Australia’s national policy for ethical use of AI starts to take shape
Future of Privacy forum article - The African Union’s Continental AI Strategy: Data Protection and Governance Laws Set to Play a Key Role in AI Regulation

Taxes

Macroeconomic Dynamics paper - Automation, Stagnation, and the Implications of a Robot Tax
CESifo paper - AI, Automation, and Taxation
GavTax article - Taxation of Artificial Intelligence and Automation

Perplexity Pages

CERN for AI page
China's AI policy page
Singapore's AI policy page
AI policy in Africa, India, Australia page

Other Sources

Artificial Intelligence Made Simple article - NYT's "AI Outperforms Doctors" Story Is Wrong
Intel report - Reclaim Your Day: The Impact of AI PCs on Productivity
Heise Online article - Users on AI PCs slower, Intel sees problem in unenlightened users
The Hacker News article - North Korean Hackers Steal $10M with AI-Driven Scams and Malware on LinkedIn
Futurism article - Character.AI Is Hosting Pedophile Chatbots That Groom Users Who Say They're Underage
Vice article - 'AI Jesus' Is Now Taking Confessions at a Church in Switzerland
Politico article - Ted Cruz: Congress 'doesn't know what the hell it's doing' with AI regulation
US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation press release - Sen. Cruz Sounds Alarm Over Industry Role in AI Czar Harris’s Censorship Agenda

The End of Scaling?

Jacob Haimes and Igor Krawczuk — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 09:00:00 -0700

Multiple news outlets, including The Information, Bloomberg, and Reuters [see sources] are reporting an "end of scaling" for the current AI paradigm. In this episode we look into these articles, as well as a wide variety of economic forecasting, empirical analysis, and technical papers to understand the validity, and impact of these reports. We also use this as an opportunity to contextualize the realized versus promised fruits of "AI".

(00:23) - Hot off the press
(01:49) - The end of scaling
(10:50) - "Useful tools" and "agentic" "AI"
(17:19) - The end of quantization
(25:18) - Hedging
(29:41) - The end of upwards mobility
(33:12) - How to grow an economy
(38:14) - Transformative & disruptive tech
(49:19) - Finding the meaning
(56:14) - Bursting AI bubble and Trump
(01:00:58) - The muck

Links

The Information article - OpenAI Shifts Strategy as Rate of ‘GPT’ AI Improvements Slows
Bloomberg [article] - OpenAI, Google and Anthropic Are Struggling to Build More Advanced AI
Reuters article - OpenAI and others seek new path to smarter AI as current methods hit limitations
Paper on the end of quantization - Scaling Laws for Precision
Tim Dettmers Tweet on "Scaling Laws for Precision"

Empirical Analysis

WU Vienna paper - Unslicing the pie: AI innovation and the labor share in European regions
IMF paper - The Labor Market Impact of Artificial Intelligence: Evidence from US Regions
NBER paper - Automation, Career Values, and Political Preferences
Pew Research Center report - Which U.S. Workers Are More Exposed to AI on Their Jobs?

Forecasting

NBER/Acemoglu paper - The Simple Macroeconomics of AI
NBER/Acemoglu paper - Harms of AI
IMF report - Gen-AI: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Work
Submission to Open Philanthropy AI Worldviews Contest - Transformative AGI by 2043 is <1% likely

Externalities and the Bursting Bubble

NBER paper - Bubbles, Rational Expectations and Financial Markets
Clayton Christensen lecture capture - Clayton Christensen: Disruptive innovation
The New Republic article - The “Godfather of AI” Predicted I Wouldn’t Have a Job. He Was Wrong.
Latent Space article - $2 H100s: How the GPU Rental Bubble Burst

On Productization

Palantir press release on introduction of Claude to US security and defense
Ars Technica article - Claude AI to process secret government data through new Palantir deal
OpenAI press release on partnering with Condé Nast
Candid Technology article - Shutterstock and Getty partner with OpenAI and BRIA
E2B
Stripe agents
Robopair

Other Sources

CBS News article - Google AI chatbot responds with a threatening message: "Human … Please die."
Biometric Update article - Travelers to EU may be subjected to AI lie detector
Techcrunch article - OpenAI’s tumultuous early years revealed in emails from Musk, Altman, and others
Richard Ngo Tweet on leaving OpenAI

US National Security Memorandum on AI, Oct 2024

Jacob Haimes and Igor Krawczuk — Wed, 06 Nov 2024 09:00:00 -0700

October 2024 saw a National Security Memorandum and US framework for using AI in national security contexts. We go through the content so you don't have to, pull out the important bits, and summarize our main takeaways.

(00:48) - The memorandum
(06:28) - What the press is saying
(10:39) - What's in the text
(13:48) - Potential harms
(17:32) - Miscellaneous notable stuff
(31:11) - What's the US governments take on AI?
(45:45) - The civil side - comments on reporting
(49:31) - The commenters
(01:07:33) - Our final hero
(01:10:46) - The muck

Links

Related Media

CAIS Newsletter - AI Safety Newsletter #43
NIST report - Artificial Intelligence Risk Management Framework: Generative Artificial Intelligence Profile
ACLU press release - ACLU Warns that Biden-Harris Administration Rules on AI in National Security Lack Key Protections
Wikipedia article - Presidential Memorandum
Reuters article - White House presses gov't AI use with eye on security, guardrails
Forbes article - America’s AI Security Strategy Acknowledges There’s No Stopping AI
DefenseScoop article - New White House directive prods DOD, intelligence agencies to move faster adopting AI capabilities
NYTimes article - Biden Administration Outlines Government ‘Guardrails’ for A.I. Tools
Forbes article - 5 Things To Know About The New National Security Memorandum On AI – And What ChatGPT Thinks
Federal News Network interview - A look inside the latest White House artificial intelligence memo
Govtech article - Reactions Mostly Positive to National Security AI Memo
The Information article - Biden Memo Encourages Military Use of AI

Other Sources

Physical Intelligence press release - π0: Our First Generalist Policy
OpenAI press release - Introducing ChatGPT Search
WhoPoo App!!

Understanding Claude 3.5 Sonnet (New)

Jacob Haimes and Igor Krawczuk — Wed, 30 Oct 2024 10:00:00 -0600

Frontier developers continue their war on sane versioning schema to bring us Claude 3.5 Sonnet (New), along with "computer use" capabilities. We discuss not only the new model, but also why Anthropic may have released this model and tool combination now.

(00:00) - Intro
(00:22) - Hot off the press
(05:03) - Claude 3.5 Sonnet (New) Two 'o' 3000
(09:23) - Breaking down "computer use"
(13:16) - Our understanding
(16:03) - Diverging business models
(32:07) - Why has Anthropic chosen this strategy?
(43:14) - Changing the frame
(48:00) - Polishing the lily

Links

Anthropic press release - Introducing Claude 3.5 Sonnet (New)
Model Card Addendum

Other Anthropic Relevant Media

Paper - Sabotage Evaluations for Frontier Models
Anthropic press release - Anthropic's Updated RSP
Alignment Forum blogpost - Anthropic's Updated RSP
Tweet - Response to scare regarding Anthropic training on user data
Anthropic press release - Developing a computer use model
Simon Willison article - Initial explorations of Anthropic’s new Computer Use capability
Tweet - ARC Prize performance
The Information article - Anthropic Has Floated $40 Billion Valuation in Funding Talks

Other Sources

LWN.net article - OSI readies controversial Open AI definition
National Security Memorandum
Framework to Advance AI Governance and Risk Management in National Security
Reuters article - Mother sues AI chatbot company Character.AI, Google over son's suicide
Medium article - A Small Step Towards Reproducing OpenAI o1: Progress Report on the Steiner Open Source Models
The Guardian article - Google's solution to accidental algorithmic racism: ban gorillas
TIME article - Ethical AI Isn’t to Blame for Google’s Gemini Debacle
Latacora article - The SOC2 Starting Seven
Grandview Research market trends - Robotic Process Automation Market Trends

Winter is Coming for OpenAI

Jacob Haimes and Igor Krawczuk — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 09:00:00 -0600

Brace yourselves, winter is coming for OpenAI - atleast, that's what we think. In this episode we look at OpenAI's recent massive funding round and ask "why would anyone want to fund a company that is set to lose net 5 billion USD for 2024?" We scrape through a whole lot of muck to find the meaningful signals in all this news, and there is a lot of it, so get ready!

(00:00) - Intro
(00:28) - Hot off the press
(02:43) - Why listen?
(06:07) - Why might VCs invest?
(15:52) - What are people saying
(23:10) - How *is* OpenAI making money?
(28:18) - Is AI hype dying?
(41:08) - Why might big companies invest?
(48:47) - Concrete impacts of AI
(52:37) - Outcome 1: OpenAI as a commodity
(01:04:02) - Outcome 2: AGI
(01:04:42) - Outcome 3: best plausible case
(01:07:53) - Outcome 1*: many ways to bust
(01:10:51) - Outcome 4+: shock factor
(01:12:51) - What's the muck
(01:21:17) - Extended outro

Links

Reuters article - OpenAI closes $6.6 billion funding haul with investment from Microsoft and Nvidia
Goldman Sachs report - GenAI: Too Much Spend, Too Little Benefit
Apricitas Economics article - The AI Investment Boom
Discussion of "The AI Investment Boom" on YCombinator
State of AI in 13 Charts
Fortune article - OpenAI sees $5 billion loss in 2024 and soaring sales as big ChatGPT fee hikes planned, report says

More on AI Hype (Dying)

Latent Space article - The Winds of AI Winter
Article by Gary Marcus - The Great AI Retrenchment has Begun
TimmermanReport article - AI: If Not Now, When? No, Really - When?
MIT News article - Who Will Benefit from AI?
Washington Post article - The AI Hype bubble is deflating. Now comes the hard part.
Andreesen Horowitz article - Why AI Will Save the World

Other Sources

Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence Foundation Model Transparency Index
Cointelegraph article - Europe gathers global experts to draft ‘Code of Practice’ for AI
Reuters article - Microsoft's VP of GenAI research to join OpenAI
Twitter post from Tim Brooks on joining DeepMind
Edward Zitron article - The Man Who Killed Google Search

Open Source AI and 2024 Nobel Prizes

Jacob Haimes and Igor Krawczuk — Wed, 16 Oct 2024 09:00:00 -0600

The Open Source AI Definition is out after years of drafting, will it reestablish brand meaning for the “Open Source” term? Also, the 2024 Nobel Prizes in Physics and Chemistry are heavily tied to AI; we scrutinize not only this year's prizes, but also Nobel Prizes as a concept.

(00:00) - Intro
(00:30) - Hot off the press
(03:45) - Open Source AI background
(10:30) - Definitions and changes in RC1
(18:36) - “Business source”
(22:17) - Parallels with legislation
(26:22) - Impacts of the OSAID
(33:58) - 2024 Nobel Prize Context
(37:21) - Chemistry prize
(45:06) - Physics prize
(50:29) - Takeaways
(52:03) - What’s the real muck?
(01:00:27) - Outro

Links

More Reading on Open Source AI

Kairos.FM article - Open Source AI is a lie, but it doesn't have to be
The Register article - The open source AI civil war approaches
MIT Technology Review article - We finally have a definition for open-source AI

On Nobel Prizes

Paper - Access to Opportunity in the Sciences: Evidence from the Nobel Laureates
Physics prize - scientific background, popular info
Chemistry prize - scientific background, popular info
Reuters article - Google's Nobel prize winners stir debate over AI research
Wikipedia article - Nobel disease

Other Sources

SB1047

Jacob Haimes and Igor Krawczuk — Mon, 30 Sep 2024 09:00:00 -0600

Why is Mark Ruffalo talking about SB1047, and what is it anyway? Tune in for our thoughts on the now vetoed California legislation that had Big Tech scared.

(00:00) - Intro
(00:31) - Updates from a relatively slow week
(03:32) - Disclaimer: SB1047 vetoed during recording (still worth a listen)
(05:24) - What is SB1047
(12:30) - Definitions
(17:18) - Understanding the bill
(28:42) - What are the players saying about it?
(46:44) - Addressing critiques
(55:59) - Open Source
(01:02:36) - Takeaways
(01:15:40) - Clarification on impact to big tech
(01:18:51) - Outro

Links

Additional SB1047 Related Coverage

Other Sources

OpenAI's o1, aka. Strawberry

Jacob Haimes and Igor Krawczuk — Mon, 23 Sep 2024 09:00:00 -0600

OpenAI's new model is out, and we are going to have to rake through a lot of muck to get the value out of this one!

⚠ Opt out of LinkedIn's GenAI scraping ➡️ https://lnkd.in/epziUeTi

(00:00) - Intro
(00:25) - Other recent news
(02:57) - Hot off the press
(03:58) - Why might someone care?
(04:52) - What is it?
(06:49) - How is it being sold?
(10:45) - How do they explain it, technically?
(27:09) - Reflection AI Drama
(40:19) - Why do we care?
(46:39) - Scraping away the muck

Note: at around 32 minutes, Igor says the incorrect Llama model version for the story he is telling. Jacob dubbed over those mistakes with the correct versioning.

Links relating to o1

Other stuff we mention