The Great AI Slowdown?

The Great AI Slowdown?

Author: Morning Brew September 14, 2026 Duration: 21:41
Dario Amodei called for pacing frontier AI development, endorsed by Sam Altman and Elon Musk, Netflix, Amazon, and YouTube launched a streaming lobbying alliance, Anthropic told investors it's profitable again, and experts flagged legal risk in Apple Watch's always-listening features. Dario Amodei proposes steps for pacing the frontier: embedded evaluators, coordination among democracies, and global coordination with authoritarian governments (Dario Amodei) The Journal reports Musk, Altman, and Amodei rare display of unity on slowing AI development, with Altman weighing a delay to OpenAI's IPO and investor Brad Gerstner calling it the right balance between speed and safety (The Wall Street Journal) The Times notes Hugging Face's Clément DeLangue argues AI safety can't be solved behind closed lab doors, just as Nvidia agreed to buy his company for $12.9B, while Nvidia's Jensen Huang accuses Anthropic and OpenAI of stoking fear to entrench their market lead (The New York Times) Netflix, Amazon, and YouTube launch the Streaming Access and Choice Alliance, led by trade group TechNet, to advocate for "technology-neutral policies" (Axios) The Hollywood Reporter says streamers have lacked DC representation compared to Big Tech and Hollywood, with sports emerging as SACA's top fight as broadcasters push to keep exclusive NFL games free over the air (The Hollywood Reporter) Sources: Anthropic told investors it will be profitable for a second straight quarter, with 80%+ gross margins before partner revenue sharing and training costs (Financial Times) Some experts say Siri Recap and Live Rewind, always-listening AI features in new Apple Watches, could test eavesdropping laws despite privacy protections (Bloomberg) Sources: Jeff Dean is raising funds again for Discovery Loop, seeking a valuation of ~$50B; Discovery Loop was raising $1B at a ~$10B valuation a few weeks ago (Business Insider) Subscribe to the ad-free feed.

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Author: Language: English Episodes: 50

Tech Brew Ride Home
Podcast Episodes
New Gemini [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 21:26
Google launched Gemini 3.6 Flash and started pretraining Gemini 4. China weighed tightening AI export controls, Bessent said the US would probe Chinese model distillation, Apple prepped a Klarna-backed leasing program, a…
It's All China AI All The Time [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 21:10
Alibaba launched Qwen3.8 Max as Moonshot paused Kimi K3 signups amid demand. The Trump administration weighed a slow squeeze on Chinese AI, Hugging Face used China's GLM-5.2 after US guardrails blocked its breach forensi…
Kimi K3 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 19:58
Moonshot AI released Kimi K3, a 2.8T-parameter model it says rivals Opus 4.8 and GPT-5.5. Google fell months behind on Gemini 3.5 Pro, MLB banned dugout iPads from accessing GenAI for in-game calls, and The Verge tested…
The Delivery Space Consolidates [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 20:03
Uber agreed to acquire Delivery Hero for ~$14.8B, expanding into 99 markets. Thinking Machines released its first open-weight model, Inkling, SpaceXAI open-sourced Grok Build after a data-upload backlash, and sources det…
PayPal On The Block? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 22:32
New York became the first state to pause new data center permits, worrying the AI industry. Stripe and Advent offered $53B+ for PayPal, OpenAI's first device leaked as a screen-free speaker, and PrismML shrank a model to…
Let's Regulate This AI Stuff? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 19:55
Demis Hassabis proposed a US-based frontier AI standards body modeled on FINRA. IBM's stock cratered 20% on a Q2 miss from chip-spending shifts, Spotify launched a voice-control feature, Kalshi debuted an AI compute forw…
Apple Sues OpenAI [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 20:43
Apple sued OpenAI, alleging ex-employees stole trade secrets for its hardware push. Twelve states sued to block the Paramount-WBD merger, Anthropic extended free Fable 5 access as rivals raced on price, and Meta killed i…
The New GPT [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 21:39
OpenAI broadly released GPT-5.6 and launched ChatGPT Work, targeting Anthropic. Fidji Simo stepped down from OpenAI citing health, the EU found Meta's "addictive design" violates the DSA, Polymarket sought margin trading…
The Day Of All The Models [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 21:02
SpaceXAI debuted Grok 4.5 with Cursor, targeting Opus-level performance at lower cost. Meta launched Muse Spark 1.1 via API, OpenAI rolled out full-duplex GPT-Live voice models, PrismML ran the largest AI model on an iPh…