AI Updates on 2025-05-13

AI Model Announcements

@Alibaba_Qwen released the Qwen3 Technical Report, documenting their latest model architecture and capabilities

AI Research

@berkeley_ai released research on learning generalized visual navigation policy from scalable but low-quality and action-free passive data sources
@AIatMeta published Part 4 of Physics of Language Models, introducing Canon layers that add "horizontal residual links" across tokens to significantly improve reasoning and generalization in Transformers, Mamba, GLA, and beyond
@AIatMeta introduced CATransformers, a carbon-driven neural architecture and system hardware co-design framework that achieves 9.1% reduction in total lifecycle carbon emissions while maintaining or increasing accuracy
@ch402 discussed the rationale behind titling their paper "On the Biology of a Large Language Model," explaining how the scientific aesthetic of biology is relevant to deep learning and interpretability research
@GoogleAI shared research on using trust graphs to model relationships and apply Differential Privacy to reflect users' asymmetric privacy preferences in data-sharing scenarios
@MIT_CSAIL introduced CausVid, a new AI model that crafts smooth, high-quality videos in seconds by combining the photorealism of diffusion models with the speed of autoregressive approaches
@huggingface announced Ultra-FineWeb, a cleaner 1.1T-token foundation for better LLMs with 1T English + 120B Chinese tokens, filtered for quality, showing +3.6 points improvement on MMLU and +3.7 on CMMLU versus FineWeb
@huggingface released Step1X-3D, a fully open-source 3D generation framework for high-fidelity and controllable generation of textured 3D assets
@emollick noted that in September 2024, physicians working with AI performed better on the Healthbench doctor benchmark than either AI or physicians alone, but with o3 and GPT-4.1, AI answers are no longer improved by physicians
@natolambert mentioned that the Tulu 3 paper coined the term RLVR (Reinforcement Learning from Value Ranking)

AI Applications

@GeminiApp launched Veo 2 for Gemini Advanced users, allowing users to go from idea to video in minutes with simple text prompts
@GeminiApp released an iPad app, addressing a previous limitation in platform availability
@Alibaba_Qwen made Deep Research on Qwen Chat available for everyone after a few weeks of phased testing
@gdb shared that Deep Research can now connect to organizations' Sharepoint, expanding its enterprise data access capabilities
@simonw noted that Gemini, OpenAI, Perplexity, and Qwen all have features named "Deep Research" while Grok bucked the trend by calling theirs "DeepSearch"
@huggingface announced up to 8x faster Whisper transcription on a single L4 GPU, powered by vllm_project
@_catwu announced new Claude Code features including multipaste for large chunks of text or images, real-time steering to adjust approach during work, and OpenTelemetry support for tracking metrics
@ycombinator launched OpenMemory MCP, a private memory for MCP-compatible clients that provides a persistent, portable memory layer for AI tools running 100% locally
@windsurf_ai added the ability to edit Cascade's terminal suggestions before running them
@TechCrunch reported that TikTok launched TikTok AI Alive, a new image-to-video tool

AI Industry Analysis

@NVIDIAAI announced plans to build AI factories with HUMAIN (an AI subsidiary of Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund) that will transform Saudi Arabia into a global AI leader, deploying up to 500 megawatts powered by several hundred thousand NVIDIA GPUs
@AndrewCurran_ reported that NVIDIA confirmed an agreement involving hundreds of thousands of "NVIDIA's most advanced GPUs over the next five years" for Saudi Arabia
@AndrewCurran_ shared that Apple is working on their own Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) with a company called Synchron, developing a device called the Stentrode implanted in a vein atop the brain's motor cortex
@_amankhan shared a graphic showing the growth of AI Product Management as a career path
@GergelyOrosz noted that data shows AI Product Managers who know how to build AI products are in demand, contrary to claims that tech and software engineering is declining due to AI
@garrytan observed that businesses seeking new customers will need to re-learn and optimize for AI-agent-driven search, similar to how they previously optimized for search engines
@Deedy reported that Microsoft laid off 3% of its workforce (approximately 7,000 employees), noting that Microsoft's headcount has stayed flat for 3 years since 2022, coinciding with ChatGPT's launch
@scottbelsky highlighted that platform shifts like AI create knowledge arbitrage opportunities, giving AI-native entrants to the workforce an advantage similar to early social media adopters
@ylecun shared support for the House Commerce reconciliation text that includes a 10-year moratorium on state-level AI regulation, which he views as safeguarding American innovation in AI

AI Ethics & Society

@medialab shared a Nature article discussing how chatbots and digital companions may affect individuals and society, featuring insights from Media Lab researcher @patpat_mit
@StanfordAILab released minions secure chat, an open-source protocol for end-to-end encrypted LLM chat with less than 1% latency overhead, ensuring cloud providers cannot access messages as they decrypt only inside a secure GPU enclave
@stanfordnlp highlighted that the House Energy and Commerce reconciliation text contains language preempting all state AI regulations for a 10-year period, representing a significant deregulatory push
@simonw raised concerns about the usability and documentation of ChatGPT's memory feature, particularly regarding how to have conversations without having them considered as part of future memory