#232 - ChatGPT Ads, Thinking Machines Drama, STEM

#232 - ChatGPT Ads, Thinking Machines Drama, STEM

Author: Skynet Today January 28, 2026 Duration: 1:41:03
Our 232st episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news! Recorded on 01/23/2026 Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and Jeremie Harris Feel free to email us your questions and feedback at contact@lastweekinai.com and/or hello@gladstone.ai Read out our text newsletter and comment on the podcast at https://lastweekin.ai/ In this episode:OpenAI announces testing of ads in ChatGPT and introduces child age prediction to enhance safety features, amidst ongoing ethical debates and funding expansions in AI integration with educational tools and business models.China's AI landscape sees significant progress with AI firm Jpu training advanced models on domestic hardware, and strong competitive moves by data centers, highlighting the intense demand in AI manufacturing and infrastructure.Silicon Valley tensions rise as startup Thinking Machines experiences high-profile departures back to OpenAI, reflecting broader industry struggles and rapid shifts in organizational dynamics.AI legislation and safety measures advance with the US Senate's Defiance Act addressing explicit content, and Anthropic updating Claude's constitution to guide ethical AI interactions, while cultural pushbacks from artists signal ongoing debates in intellectual property and AI-generated content. Timestamps:(00:00:10) Intro / Banter(00:02:08) News Preview(00:02:26) Response to listener commentsTools & Apps(00:11:55) OpenAI to test ads in ChatGPT as it burns through billions - Ars Technica(00:18:05) OpenAI is launching age prediction for ChatGPT accounts(00:23:37) Google now offers free SAT practice exams, powered by Gemini | TechCrunch(00:24:57) Baidu’s AI Assistant Reaches Milestone of 200 Million Monthly Active Users - WSJApplications & Business(00:26:53) The Drama at Thinking Machines, a New A.I. Start-Up, Is Riveting Silicon Valley - The New York Times(00:31:44) Zhipu AI breaks US chip reliance with first major model trained on Huawei stack | South China Morning Post(00:36:31) Elon Musk’s xAI launches world’s first Gigawatt AI supercluster to rival OpenAI and Anthropic(00:41:25) Sequoia to invest in Anthropic, breaking VC taboo on backing rivals: FT(00:45:18) Humans&, a 'human-centric' AI startup founded by Anthropic, xAI, Google alums, raised $480M seed round | TechCrunchProjects & Open Source(00:48:51) Black Forest Labs Releases FLUX.2 [klein]: Compact Flow Models for Interactive Visual Intelligence - MarkTechPost(00:50:35) [2601.10611] Molmo2: Open Weights and Data for Vision-Language Models with Video Understanding and Grounding(00:52:53) [2601.10547] HeartMuLa: A Family of Open Sourced Music Foundation Models(00:54:46) [2601.11044] AgencyBench: Benchmarking the Frontiers of Autonomous Agents in 1M-Token Real-World ContextsResearch & Advancements(00:57:05) STEM: Scaling Transformers with Embedding Modules(01:06:22) Reasoning Models Generate Societies of Thought(01:14:21) Why LLMs Aren't Scientists Yet: Lessons from Four Autonomous Research AttemptsPolicy & Safety(01:19:41) Senate passes bill letting victims sue over Grok AI explicit images(01:22:03) Building Production-Ready Probes For Gemini(01:27:32) Anthropic Publishes Claude AI's New Constitution | TIMESynthetic Media & Art(01:34:13) Artists Launch Stealing Isn't Innovation Campaign To Protest Big Tech See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Keeping up with artificial intelligence can feel like drinking from a firehose. Every week brings a new breakthrough, a surprising application, or an urgent ethical debate. Last Week in AI, from the team at Skynet Today, is here to turn that torrent into a clear, digestible stream. Instead of getting lost in the noise, you'll get a thoughtful rundown of the developments that actually have impact, explained without unnecessary jargon. Each episode feels like a conversation with well-informed friends who have done the homework for you, sifting through research papers, product launches, and industry announcements to highlight what's substantive. You'll hear nuanced discussions that go beyond the headlines, considering the real-world implications of new models, policy shifts, and corporate moves in the tech landscape. This podcast doesn't just tell you what happened; it provides context on why it matters for developers, businesses, and society at large. It’s an efficient way to stay informed and critically engaged with a field that is reshaping our world at a breathtaking pace. Tune in for a consistently insightful analysis that makes the complex world of AI feel accessible and relevant, week after week.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Last Week in AI
Podcast Episodes
#230 - 2025 Retrospective, Nvidia buys Groq, GLM 4.7, METR [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:38:08
Our 230th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news! Recorded on 01/02/2026 Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and Jeremie Harris Feel free to email us your questions and feedback at contact@lastweekinai.co…
#229 - Gemini 3 Flash, ChatGPT Apps, Nemotron 3 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:27:07
Our 229th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news! Recorded on 12/19/2025 Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and Jeremie Harris Feel free to email us your questions and feedback at contact@lastweekinai.co…
#228 - GPT 5.2, Scaling Agents, Weird Generalization [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:26:42
Our 228th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news! Recorded on 12/12/2025 Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and Jeremie Harris Feel free to email us your questions and feedback at contact@lastweekinai.co…
#227 - Jeremie is back! DeepSeek 3.2, TPUs, Nested Learning [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:34:40
Our 227th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news! Recorded on 12/05/2025 Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and Jeremie Harris Feel free to email us your questions and feedback at contact@lastweekinai.co…
#226 - Gemini 3, Claude Opus 4.5, Nano Banana Pro, LeJEPA [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:11:11
Our 226th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news! Recorded on 11/24/2025 Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and co-hosted by Michelle Lee Feel free to email us your questions and feedback at contact@last…
#225 - GPT 5.1, Kimi K2 Thinking, Remote Labor Index [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:18:14
Our 225th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news! Recorded on 11/16/2025 Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and co-hosted by Michelle Lee Feel free to email us your questions and feedback at contact@last…
#224 - OpenAI is for-profit! Cursor 2, Minimax M2, Udio copyright [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:31:43
Our 224th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news! Recorded on 10/31/2025 Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and co-hosted by Gavin Purcell (check out AI For Humans and AndThen!) Feel free to email us you…
#223 - Haiku 4.5, OpenAI DevDay, Claude Skills, Scaling RL, SB 243 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:11:45
We discuss a range of news from updates on AI models and tools by Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic, to new business partnerships involving OpenAI and Broadcom, along with regulatory actions from California and market mov…
#222 - Sora 2, Sonnet 4.5, Vibes, Thinking Machines [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:37:16
Our 222st episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news! Recorded on 10/03/2025 Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and co-hosted by Jon Krohn Feel free to email us your questions and feedback at contact@lastwee…
#221 - OpenAI Codex, Gemini in Chrome, K2-Think, SB 53 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 47:01
Our 221st episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news! Recorded on 09/19/2025 Note: we transitioned to a new RSS feed and it seems this did not make it to there, so this may be posted about 2 weeks p…