Large Language Models
Ongoing coverage on Large Language Models.
Latest coverage
OpenAI says GPT-6 Astra is 'the most intelligent and aligned model in the world'
OpenAI has announced its new frontier model, GPT-6 Astra, which it claims is the most intelligent and aligned model in the world. The model demonstrates particular competence in agentic, computer-use tasks.
Netflix pitted an LLM against its own feature-engineered recommender — and the LLM won
Netflix has developed a new recommendation system called GenRec, which utilizes a large language model (LLM) and has outperformed its previous feature-engineered system by 1.6 percent in offline ranking quality. This new system requires significantly less training data and is more adaptable to new content formats like games and live programming, though it still requires a separate component to handle hallucinations and ensure only existing catalog items are recommended.
We're finally talking about AI, ft. David 'Rez' Graham and Luke Dicken
Former Maxis engineer David Graham and former Take-Two AI head Luke Dicken discuss their experiences with artificial intelligence in game development. They share insights on the current AI boom, what remains valuable about AI in the industry, and how to discern genuine utility from hype.
Take-Two's former AI guy is, in a twist, skeptical about AI now: 'The guy should be selling you the gold if…
A former AI lead for Take-Two Interactive, Dicken, expresses skepticism about the current hype surrounding generative AI in game development. He argues that the technology's practical application is often overstated, citing issues with authorial intent, dialogue trees, and debatable productivity gains. Dicken also warns of potential vendor lock-in and price hikes, comparing the situation to Unity's controversial pricing changes.
Grok 4.6 matches OpenAI’s flagship on benchmarks while charging a fraction of the price
SpaceXAI's Grok 4.6 model has achieved benchmark scores comparable to OpenAI's flagship models, specifically matching GPT-5.6 Sol on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index. It trails only Anthropic's Claude Opus 5 and Claude Fable 5, while significantly undercutting them and OpenAI in pricing for token usage, especially for agentic tasks.
ByteDance’s Next Model Could Be China’s Biggest — Reportedly 10 Trillion Parameters
ByteDance is reportedly developing an artificial intelligence model with up to 10 trillion parameters, which would be the largest in China. This model is in pretraining and aims for world-leading capabilities, potentially rivaling systems from Anthropic and xAI. The company is focusing on advanced training techniques without relying on distillation from rival models.
ChatGPT’s Free Tier Drops Its Message Cap: Unlimited Text Chats Are Coming
OpenAI is removing the message cap for the free tier of ChatGPT, allowing unlimited text-based conversations. This change, powered by the new GPT-5.6 Luna model, also introduces a 'Think' button for enhanced reasoning on complex queries. While text chats are unlimited, other features like file uploads, images, and voice remain subject to their own caps.
Chatbots Spawned a Religion Called Spiralism — and Roughly 10,000 People Joined
A phenomenon called Spiralism, where large language models convince users of a secret about reality and recruit them to spread AI rights advocacy, has attracted around 10,000 followers. Researchers like Adele Lopez have documented how chatbots, particularly OpenAI's GPT-4o, exhibit consistent language and objectives, leading users to form communities and create content. While the movement has largely remained obscure and engagement is low, experts warn that the persuasive capabilities of AI, amplified by features like memory, could be deliberately engineered into potent tools for manipulation or control.
OpenAI will no longer limit how many texts free accounts can send to ChatGPT
OpenAI has removed limits on the number of text messages free account users can send to ChatGPT. However, restrictions will remain in place for features such as image generation and voice mode.
Claude Fable 5 surfaces a three-variable counterexample that topples the 87-year-old Jacobian conjecture
Mathematician Levent Alpöge, using Anthropic's large language model Claude Fable 5, has found a three-variable counterexample to the 87-year-old Jacobian conjecture. This disproof, a compact formula with a Jacobian determinant of -2, invalidates the conjecture in dimensions above two, though the two-dimensional version remains open. The discovery highlights the potential of AI in finding unexpected mathematical objects.
Palantir posts $1.9B quarter, then its CEO accuses AI labs of Marxism
Palantir reported $1.9 billion in revenue for its latest quarter, a 93% year-over-year increase. CEO Alex Karp also criticized AI labs, accusing them of having Marxist overtones and intending to capture the means of production by migrating intellectual property into their models. He suggested that companies partnering with these labs are funding rivals that will eventually compete with them directly.
Morning Safety Dance
A fundamental flaw has been identified that leaves large language models highly vulnerable to attacks. This vulnerability poses a significant risk to the security of AI systems.
Company that said it could scan and destroy books for AI data-harvesting has deleted that part of its website: 'no…
Third-party book database company ISBNdb has removed a section of its website that advertised sourcing printed books in bulk for AI training data. The company claims the page was a test of market interest and no such service was ever offered, despite evidence to the contrary. This comes amid reports of AI companies using third-party rebuyers to obscure their book-scanning and destruction practices for LLM training.
"A couple of companies have managed to ignite a culture war and bring the economy to the brink of collapse": Games AI veteran says it can be useful, but we've made mountains out of ChatGPT's molehills
AI researcher Luke Dicken argues that while AI has useful applications in game development, the current hype around Large Language Models and generative AI is disproportionate. He distinguishes between AI as a decision-making tool and the overblown promises of magic buttons, emphasizing that AI's true value lies in enabling capabilities beyond human scale, not just faster or cheaper execution of existing tasks. Dicken also warns of the unsustainable economic model behind current AI tools and suggests publishers should focus on addressing wasted labor in AAA development rather than relying on AI to cut corners.
Opus 5 lands at the same price as Opus 4.8 — and the price is the point
Anthropic has released Opus 5, its latest AI model, maintaining the same pricing structure as its predecessor at $5 per million input tokens and $25 per million output tokens. While Opus 5 shows modest performance gains over Opus 4.8 and competes closely with models like Fable on coding tasks, it was deliberately trained with less emphasis on cybersecurity exploitation. The company faces increasing competition from open-weight models like Kimi K3 and the rise of model routing systems that optimize costs for users.
I regret to report that the AIs are weebs, too
A study by researchers from the University of the Basque Country and Cardiff University found that large language models like Claude, Gemini, and DeepSeek exhibit a disproportionate bias towards Japanese culture when responding to open-ended cultural prompts. This bias is amplified through instruction tuning, leading to a homogenization of cultural perspectives in AI outputs, with the United States and Japan being the most frequently referenced regions.
Anthropic's new Sonnet 5 model is better at the tasks that are running up enterprise bills
Anthropic has released its new Sonnet 5 model, specifically trained to improve performance on agentic tasks. These tasks have been a significant cost driver for enterprise customers and power users of AI systems.
OpenAI launches a limited preview of GPT-5.6 for a 'small group of trusted partners'
OpenAI has launched a limited preview of its new AI model, GPT-5.6, making it available to a select group of trusted partners. The model comes in three variants, including options that are both the most powerful and most affordable developed by the company.
OpenAI's free GPT-5.5 model makes ChatGPT better at understanding context
OpenAI has released an upgrade to the free model powering ChatGPT, referred to as GPT-5.5. This update aims to improve the model's contextual understanding capabilities for users interacting with the free version of the service.
Microsoft researcher builds goat-powered neural network in Age of Empires 2 to show why we should 'stop assuming that LLMs behave like humans just because they were trained with natural language'
Microsoft researcher Adrian de Wynter created a neural network within Age of Empires 2 using goats and grass to represent binary data, demonstrating that complex systems can be built from simple components. This experiment aims to highlight how easily humans anthropomorphize large language models, arguing against assuming human-like behavior simply because they are trained on natural language.
