#230 - 2025 Retrospective, Nvidia buys Groq, GLM 4.7, METR
Last Week in AI
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Meta-RL (Lamer) Improves Exploration
Jeremie outlines Lamer's meta‑RL approach where multi-episode rewards and in-context reflection boost agent exploration.
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Transcript
Episode notes
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.com and/or hello@gladstone.ai
Read out our text newsletter and comment on the podcast at https://lastweekin.ai/
In this episode:
- Nvidia's acquisition of AI chip startup Groq for $20 billion highlights a strategic move for enhanced inference technology in GPUs.
- New York's RAISE Act legislation aims to regulate AI safety, marking the second major AI safety bill in the US.
- The launch of GLM 4.7 by Zhipu AI marks a significant advancement in open-source AI models for coding.
- Evaluation of long-horizon AI agents raises concerns about the rising costs and efficiency of AI in performing extended tasks.
Timestamps:
- (00:00:10) Intro / Banter
- (00:01:58) 2025 Retrospective
- Tools & Apps
- (00:24:39) OpenAI bets big on audio as Silicon Valley declares war on screens | TechCrunch
- Applications & Business
- (00:26:39) Nvidia buying AI chip startup Groq for about $20 billion, biggest deal
- (00:34:28) Exclusive | Meta Buys AI Startup Manus, Adding Millions of Paying Users - WSJ
- (00:38:05) Cursor continues acquisition spree with Graphite deal | TechCrunch
- (00:39:15) Micron Hikes CapEx to $20B with 2026 HBM Supply Fully Booked; HBM4 Ramps 2Q26
- (00:42:06) Chinese fabs are reportedly upgrading older ASML DUV lithography chipmaking machines — secondary channels and independent engineers used to soup up Twinscan NXT series
- Projects & Open Source
- (00:47:52) Z.AI launches GLM-4.7, new SOTA open-source model for coding
- (00:50:11) Evaluating AI’s ability to perform scientific research tasks
- Research & Advancements
- (00:54:32) Large Causal Models from Large Language Models
- (00:57:33) Universally Converging Representations of Matter Across Scientific Foundation Models
- (01:02:11) META-RL INDUCES EXPLORATION IN LANGUAGE AGENTS
- (01:07:16) Are the Costs of AI Agents Also Rising Exponentially?
- (01:11:17) METR eval for Opus 4.5
- (01:16:19) How to game the METR plot
- Policy & Safety
- (01:17:24) New York governor Kathy Hochul signs RAISE Act to regulate AI safety | TechCrunch
- (01:20:40) Activation Oracles: Training and Evaluating LLMs as General-Purpose Activation Explainers
- (01:26:46) Monitoring Monitorability
- (01:32:07) Sam Altman is hiring someone to worry about the dangers of AI | The Verge
- (01:33:38) X users asking Grok to put this girl in bikini, Grok is happy obliging - India Today
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