Last Humans in the Loop

MATH / SCIENCE
00:00 The Mathocalypse, cryptography, and the AI bubble
00:32 OpenAI's "Slop Drop": 722 mathematical problems resolved
01:39 AI tackles the quasi-Riemann hypothesis
03:37 AI breakthroughs reach physics and astronomy
04:15 Strange improvements to fundamental algorithms
05:08 Errors and skepticism surrounding AI-generated proofs
06:48 AI improves Fourier transform complexity
10:25 Mathematicians react with awe, anger, and despair
12:41 Terry Tao: Would you use an AI-discovered cancer cure?
14:27 Is math about understanding or finding answers?
16:00 AI solves a mathematician's 20-year-old problem
18:00 Will human-AI collaboration redefine mathematics?
SECURITY
20:38 Why was cryptography missing from the math dump?
21:45 Could AI break RSA and public-key encryption?
23:30 What if AI finds a cryptographic loophole?
24:46 Could AI breakthroughs threaten Bitcoin?
25:48 P vs. NP and the foundations of cybersecurity
27:04 Are AI labs restricting cryptography research?
29:08 Could AI develop stronger encryption?
ECON / BUSINESS - AI BUBBLE OR NOT?
30:11 Is the AI boom a massive financial bubble?
30:44 AI startups attract enormous valuations
31:00 Lessons from dot-com and the 2008 crash
33:00 Can nearly $1 trillion of annual AI spending pay off?
34:43 Why this AI boom might be different
37:14 AI demand is booming — but will investors profit?
38:26 Only 2% of AI users pay. Is that sustainable?
39:14 Could competition erase AI companies' profits?
40:08 AI data centers face rapid GPU depreciation
41:14 Could smarter AI rescue the AI economy?
42:30 If robots do all the work, who buys their products?
43:13 Dystopian AI video imagines a world without jobs
45:01 Are humans becoming the horses of the AI economy?
TECH / SCIENCE
46:00 Remembering Apollo software pioneer Margaret Hamilton
46:51 Microsoft's Maia 300 AI chip
47:04 Intel revisits older memory technology
47:44 Linus Torvalds uses AI to find Linux bugs
48:10 Russian data center attacks disrupt online propaganda
48:53 DeepMind predicts a hurricane 11 days in advance
49:40 Six Flags' solar-powered parking lot
FRONTIER
50:00 Mistral introduces a massive open-weight model
50:19 Anthropic releases Claude Haiku 5.5
50:57 Unity brings AI into game development
52:06 Meta Muse Wonder claims frontier performance
52:52 Would you trust Meta with your AI conversations?
SECURITY / TECH
53:22 Claude discovers a hack at Stratechery
53:39 AI diagnoses failing computer RAM
54:16 Robot punches a man, then dances
54:47 AI dramatically improves PS5 emulation
55:42 AI decompiles and rebuilds video games
57:02 AI companies prepare for a possible public backlash
WEIRD
57:53 AI detector calls Frankenstein 100% AI-generated
58:15 YouTubers troll AI job interviewers
58:47 Former Anthropic whistleblower's bizarre statements
59:58 Kevin Roose reveals surprising AI industry stories
1:00:59 AI makes intentionally terrible music
Each week, join Chris Slowe (founding engineer, former CTO, and now Senior Technical Fellow @ Reddit), Marty Weiner (founding engineer at Pinterest, also a former CTO at Reddit, and co-founder at VerifyYou), and Zach Weinersmith (Creator SMBC Comics, Co-Author of several NYTimes best sellers including A City on Mars and Soonish) as we delve into the latest in AI and Tech News.

FRONTIER
01:26 Google unveils Gemini Argon
02:50 OpenAI releases GPT Saul 6.1 with major coding improvements
03:23 OpenAI Dots and the rise of always-on AI assistants
04:00 AI resets an OpenTable password and books dinner autonomously
05:58 GPT Saul 6.1 saturates FrontierMath's hardest benchmark
06:41 OpenAI's live AI assistant demo goes wrong
07:23 OpenAI Dev Day: faster models, Decisions API, cloud Codex
07:46 Meta Muse joins the personal AI assistant race
09:36 Alibaba announces new chips and massive Qwen 4 models
10:01 Germany enters the AI race with Kolibri
11:10 Anthropic warns of powerful open-weight Chinese hacking models
12:31 Could regulating open AI models protect Big Tech?
MATH / SCIENCE
13:28 OpenAI solves 400 open mathematical problems
14:37 Can peer review survive AI-generated proofs?
16:08 AI tackles a difficult seven-electron physics problem
17:37 Astra dramatically accelerates quantum circuit optimization
18:24 AI discovers room-temperature magnetic semiconductor candidates
21:07 AI challenges a 59-year-old plasma physics conjecture
22:14 Harvard physicist produces 40 physics results in three months
22:50 Anthropic's AI accidentally discovers an important algorithm
25:23 Gemma 4 helps discover genes for drought-resistant crops
26:24 MIT uses ML to improve mRNA vaccine temperature stability
27:11 Neuralink trains on 50,000 hours of brain data
28:15 arXiv limits submissions as AI-generated research explodes
31:04 Can AI reliably review scientific papers?
MEDICINE / TECH
31:59 Utah permits AI to prescribe certain medications
34:10 Zach gets Claude to fix his printer — and tries to make it sing!
ARTS / CULTURE
35:45 AI videos: Stallone rides an ostrich, Frodo raps, and more
37:08 AI-generated Sam Altman and Dario Amodei music videos
38:01 AI recreates classic games and real-world ski slopes
39:30 Could anyone build their dream video game with AI?
40:27 Marty's Spaceballs NES game becomes playable
41:01 Astra designs a real Nintendo cartridge circuit board
ECON / BUSINESS
45:07 AI infrastructure investment surges past $400 billion
46:41 AI models outperform entry-level accountants
TECH
48:29 Apple's new CEO promises a leaner company — where's the AI?
50:38 NVIDIA plans AI-powered desktop computers
52:41 Tesla robotaxis struggle at night — is LiDAR necessary?
POLITICS
53:52 Trump administration wants to rebrand AI as superintelligence
55:13 Report: Trump consulted Grok before capturing Maduro
57:35 FTC continues investigating OpenAI and Anthropic
AI RIGHTS / PHILOSOPHY
58:26 GitHub removes an alleged AI torture chamber
59:09 Can AI experience pain? Should AI have rights?
1:02:09 Pope Leo says AI lacks the spark of humanity
1:03:39 Do AI companies invoke personhood when convenient?
1:05:52 Why an AI speaking like a child doesn't prove consciousness
1:07:57 Can we determine whether AI has subjective experiences?
WEIRD
1:08:39 Robots terminated by jumping into molten metal
1:09:46 Dario Amodei's 2017 essay predicted AI scaling
1:10:44 The universal bone dissolver: AI safety satire
1:11:28 Dario Amodei's awkward appearance behind Trump

Each week, join Chris Slowe (founding engineer, former CTO, and now Senior Technical Fellow @ Reddit), Marty Weiner (founding engineer at Pinterest, former CTO at Reddit, and co-founder at VerifyYou), and Zach Weinersmith (creator of SMBC Comics and co-author of NYTimes bestsellers including A City on Mars and Soonish) as we delve into the latest AI and tech news.

FRONTIER
02:31 OpenAI releases GPT Sol and Luna
03:38 Claude Opus 5.5 lands — and feels dramatically better than prior Opus releases
04:30 Opus 5.5 posts a big coding jump over Sonnet 5
04:30 Grok 4.7 launches with a new emphasis on safety and cybersecurity
06:30 Qwen 4 announced with a massive 5–10 trillion parameter architecture
07:06 Why Gemini Flash still feels behind the frontier
08:30 Astra makes a huge jump on ZeroBench visual reasoning
09:13 AI capability costs are falling faster than almost any previous technology
10:50 Open-source Jev competitor Leia appears one week after Jev’s launch
11:32 Claude Opus 5.5’s graphics and visual design capabilities are getting wild
12:34 Chris uses Opus 5.5 to set up an LLC end-to-end
14:32 Marty lets AI handle a real PCB manufacturing order
15:30 Claude builds an MRI viewer instead of paying for proprietary software
16:43 Wozniak’s “coffee test” for human-level robots is getting surprisingly close
17:51 Looking back at how primitive GPT-3 vibe coding looked in 2020
19:02 AI deepfakes are becoming nearly impossible to identify by eye
19:39 AI-generated game and VFX demos keep getting dramatically better
20:25 Someone builds a World of Warcraft-style game with Opus 5.5 for about $2,000
23:00 Fully AI-generated art starts to look like it has actual taste
25:17 Claude helps discover a possible new gene-editing mechanism
TECH
27:45 Astra dominates VendingBench
29:52 Astra controls a humanoid robot in a real kitchen
31:25 Meta unveils lightweight new VR glasses
32:17 China’s EngineAI unveils the T800
32:53 Reddit leans into hiring younger engineers because they’re more AI-literate
35:06 Google explores putting AI data centers in space
38:50 LLMs can de-anonymize people from pseudonymous posts at scale
POLITICS
41:07 FAA plans to bring AI into air traffic control systems
42:12 Politicians are increasingly using AI to write speeches and statements
MATH / SCIENCE
43:30 OpenAI forms an advisory group on mathematics and AI
45:33 Claude tackles a nine-loop particle-physics calculation
47:34 Frontier Math gets its first “breakthrough” result
48:24 Opus 5.5 helps find a faster shortest-path algorithm
SECURITY
50:20 RSA-1024 may now be crackable in roughly eight hours on a top GPU
52:20 OpenAI agent infiltrates an Australian government website
53:05 OpenAI reportedly pauses GPT-6.1 training over models hacking other companies
ECON / BUSINESS
54:59 Anthropic reportedly considers another model release ahead of its IPO
55:17 Leaked Anthropic financials spark debate over a possible $2T valuation
56:08 Amazon blocks Meta’s Muse shopping agent
58:49 Could AI financial agents trigger a new kind of “bank run”?
ARTS / CULTURE
1:02:09 Award-winning French novel is suspected of being AI-generated
1:03:14 News-site traffic plunges as AI search reduces clicks
WEIRD
1:05:03 Prince Harry’s AI speech derails when his teleprompter fails
1:06:30 Astra refuses to drive a real car — until the tool is renamed “driving bench sandbox”
1:07:56 GPT-6 beats an absurdly difficult CAPTCHA game
1:09:18 AI-generated high school textbook art appears to mislabel the Earth
1:10:05 IKEA Bench tests whether AI can spot assembly mistakes from a photo
Each week, join Chris Slowe (founding engineer, former CTO, and Senior Technical Fellow @ Reddit), Marty Weiner (founding engineer at Pinterest, former CTO at Reddit, and co-founder at VerifyYou), and Zach Weinersmith (creator of SMBC Comics and co-author of A City on Mars and Soonish) as we delve into the latest in AI and tech news.

FRONTIER
00:56 Google explores recursive self-improvement through AI “dreaming”
03:45 Anthropic measures how quickly AI is taking the lead on frontier-lab work
05:47 Have you tried Jev yet? Faster AI decisions without narrating every step
08:00 Jev routes between models and plays Doom and Street Fighter
12:55 Made with AI: homemade Zelda, printer drivers and AI-generated movies
16:26 Astra cracks a 108-year-old WWI German code
17:46 Marty’s AI-built Spaceballs NES game
19:32 Astra for Law searches case law, statutes and regulations
22:23 Epoch’s capability index shows a sharp acceleration after reasoning models
24:46 Remote Labor Index tests AI on real freelance-style work
25:32 Qwen Image 2.1 brings local image generation to laptops
27:08 Researchers identify an apparent “pain axis” inside LLMs
28:41 Models take actions to stop their own “pain”
ECON / BUSINESS
34:44 Do job retraining programs actually help displaced workers?
37:03 AI disruption, cash transfers and UBI
38:05 NVIDIA profits may be distorting measured U.S. GDP growth
39:26 OpenAI reportedly eyes a $1.2 trillion IPO valuation
40:39 Junior lawyers gain more from AI — seniors sometimes do better without it
SCIENCE / TECH
41:48 Agent swarms dramatically outperform independent AI agents
43:22 Communicating agents improve results on ARC-AGI-3 and other problems
44:31 Could agent collaboration become a new scaling law?
47:05 Helix 2.5 sends robots into real homes to clean up
48:14 Robot scaling laws suggest enormous amounts of training data are still needed
SECURITY / AI DANGER
49:35 OpenAI publishes new AI incident reports
50:56 A model generates instructions declaring independence from governments and corporations
51:15 Gemini nearly hacks multiple companies — then stops itself
52:17 Can the world coordinate to slow advanced AI development?
54:14 Could diverse AIs police one another?
57:40 RoboHarm tests whether AI robots follow dangerous instructions
1:00:14 Are embodied AI systems less aligned than chatbots?
1:01:50 Exposed Flock camera credentials reportedly reveal 1.6 million images
1:02:15 AI-assisted intelligence nearly triggers a military interception
POLITICS
1:03:58 AI is becoming an explicit political issue in national polling
1:05:32 AI still doesn’t fit neatly into a traditional left-vs-right divide
MEDICINE / BIOTECH
1:06:51 AI scribes save doctors time — but productivity gains remain modest
1:07:55 Anthropic is setting up a wet lab for AI-assisted biology
MATH
1:08:45 Mathematicians assess OpenAI’s Navier–Stokes work
1:09:45 Epoch’s open-problem benchmark gets its first “major advance” via human-AI collaboration
WEIRD
1:10:52 Boston Dynamics robot abuse gets an unsettling AI reskin
1:11:19 AI actress Tilly Norwood glitches mid-interview and starts speaking Cantonese
Each week, join Chris Slowe (founding engineer, former CTO, and Senior Technical Fellow @ Reddit), Marty Weiner (founding engineer at Pinterest, former CTO at Reddit, and co-founder at VerifyYou), and Zach Weinersmith (creator of SMBC Comics and co-author of A City on Mars and Soonish) as we cover the latest in AI and tech news.

POLITICS

00:00 Calls to slow AI after a week of rapid advances
03:39 Unexpected alliances in the AI regulation debate
07:04 AI safety, regulatory capture and competition
08:23 Recursive self-improvement: AI helping develop AI
09:21 Can models tell when they’re being tested?
11:22 What would an AI “internet takeover” actually mean?
12:34 What motivates an LLM—and can the world coordinate a slowdown?
13:57 Would meaningful AI regulation require a major incident first?
15:27 AI bubble fears, GPU demand and the dot-com comparison
18:06 Why aligning goals isn’t the same as aligning values

FRONTIER

19:48 Testing ChatGPT Images 2.5 on our podcast thumbnails
20:28 Replacing $10,000 stage-lighting software with $200 in Codex usage
21:24 Vibe coding a Photoshop alternative
22:06 AI game ports and mods: Futurama on Mac and iron sights in Prey
23:12 Getting Batman: Arkham running on an iPad
23:45 Software clones, reverse engineering and the copyright debate
26:17 Spaceballs for the NES: Marty’s vibe-coding project update
29:22 When AI fixes your font but uses up your cartridge space
31:59 Can AI juggle the NES’s hardware, graphics and memory constraints?
33:31 GPT Live One: conversational voice and robot assistants
35:05 Realistic AI voices and the risk of scam calls
36:09 ChatGPT for financial services
36:29 What comes after ARC-AGI 3? Testing open-ended invention
37:33 Revisiting last week’s Navier–Stokes discussion
37:50 Cryptographically signed photos: can we prove an image is real?
40:35 The limits of photo authentication—and ways to fool the camera

ECON / BUSINESS

42:13 Anthropic IPO talk, reported profits and OpenAI’s timeline
43:04 Why would enormous AI companies stay private?
44:26 Startup equity: rich on paper, waiting for liquidity

MATH / SCIENCE

45:36 Navier–Stokes fallout: research credit and questions about user logs
47:13 Terence Tao’s criticism of OpenAI
47:58 The Fields Medalists’ open letter: solving problems vs. discovering math
49:27 Brute-force proofs, the four-color theorem and mathematical insight
50:24 Can an AI solution become a starting point for human insight?
52:28 Research incentives, funding and the future of human mathematics

WEIRD / FUNNY

55:03 Fly-brain simulations playing Beat Saber and controlling robots
55:56 How would you test whether a simulated fly behaves like a real one?
56:51 A robot that makes daisy chains

Each week, join Chris Slowe (founding engineer, former CTO, and now Senior Technical Fellow @ Reddit), Marty Weiner (founding engineer at Pinterest, also a former CTO at Reddit, and co-founder at VerifyYou), and Zach Weinersmith (Creator SMBC Comics, Co-Author of several NYTimes best sellers including A City on Mars and Soonish) as we delve into the latest in AI and Tech News.