Transistor Radio TR41: Mandate of Heaven (Nov 2025 Edition)
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Nov 25, 2025 The hosts dive into the shifting landscape of AI, debating who currently holds the 'Mandate of Heaven.' They compare the current AI bubble to the railroad boom, discussing market overreactions and the competitive landscape. Insights on global AI models highlight strengths of key players like OpenAI and Chinese labs. The panel explores historical parallels, financial transparency, and the implications of speculative investments. Personal anecdotes lighten the mood, contrasting family tales with serious topics like funding AGI and geopolitical dynamics.
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AI Leadership Is Task-Dependent
- Multiple labs excel at different stages: OpenAI in post-training, Anthropic in instruction following, and others in pretraining or niche tasks.
- The AI leadership ranking is fluid because model strengths diverge by workload and deployment surface.
Timing And Distribution Limit Model Dominance
- Training cadence matters: not doing fresh pretraining runs can let rivals seize the high end.
- Distribution and consumer-facing load constrain how much compute companies can reallocate to research.
Trade Headlines For Compute Reality
- Expect market narratives to overreact to small product updates and announcements.
- Focus on compute allocation realities and product surface when assessing AI company health, not just headlines.