Demis Hassabis, co-founder & CEO of DeepMind, is coming to YC! 🎉
> Fireside chat w/ Garry Tan
> Keynote from DeepMind researchers
> Talks & live demos from YC founders
> Meet DeepMind engineers 1:1
If you're building at the edge of AI, you should be there.
events.ycombinator.com/gdm-startupday
Now out: Video of my recent conversation with @chrislhayes.bsky.social about his great book The Siren's Call, social media's grip on our attention, and what AI may mean for our focus, politics, and future. www.youtube.com/watch?v=KY38...
🚨 🔬 PhD positions at Google DeepMind in France 🇫🇷
We are advertising Master Level Intern positions at Google DeepMind within our Frontier AI Unit.
These could lead to co-advised PhD positions with Google DeepMind and French academic institutions.
job-boards.greenhouse.io/deepmind/job...
Real world implications of the shift towards AI adoption
A ton of attention over the years goes to plots comparing open to closed models.
The real trend that matters for AI impacts on society is the gap between closed frontier models and local consumer models.
Local models passing major milestones will have major repercussions.
buff.ly/ccMJydQ
Claude, "We all know among Sauron's many evils was that he ran Mordor using an Excel spreadsheet with multiple tabs. Show me the spreadsheet"
It made 12 tabs "so bureaucratically complex that even the Eye of Sauron would need reading glasses to review it." Some very funny stuff. Creative, even.
Gemini Live is giving me the confidence to speak my second language
The anxiety I experience when trying to speak my second language disappears when I use Gemini Live.
#ai #gemini #geminiai
This is a cool paper that suggests that AI agents can indeed be used for social science experiments, but that just using a chatbot isn't good enough, instead prompts developed based on social & game theory makes AI agent actions predictive of real human outcomes. benjaminmanning.io/files/optimi...
Duolingo’s recent earnings shows the gap between online vocal AI critics and businesses real-world value.
Despite the backlash, Duolingo’s revenue and daily users jumped 40%.
The AI hype is wild, but so is the value people are getting. This isn’t blockchain, it’s more like mobile or the internet
This makes my day!!
"In collaboration with the @archive.org TV News Archive we examined 14,749 evening news broadcasts spanning the big three networks from July 2010 to present, asking Gemini 2.5 Flash Thinking to make an index of the stories covered in each broadcast, geography, sentiment, frame, narrative structure.
We may have the chance to hire an outstanding researcher 3+ years post PhD to join Tarleton Gillespie, Mary Gray and me in Cambridge MA bringing critical sociotechnical perspectives to bear on new technologies.
jobs.careers.microsoft.com/global/en/jo...
🤯
🥇 I am so happy to see the Google DeepMind Gemini team **OFFICIALLY** achieved gold-medal performance.
Not only did we get 5 out of 6 questions correct. What's more amazing is the official IMO graders find those answers to be clear, precise and easy to follow! 1/
deepmind.google/discover/blo...
"[video game] as a community theater production" may be one of the most delightful Veo 3 Fast prompts
Please enjoy, in order: GTA, Pokemon, Mario Kart, The Witcher 3, Stardew Valley, Tetris, Mortal Kombat, The Sims, & Death Stranding.
The whole prompt was the one above. And the glitches add to it
If you're at @icmlconf.bsky.social this week, come check out our poster on "Position: Evaluating Generative AI Systems Is a Social Science Measurement Challenge" presented by the amazing @afedercooper.bsky.social from 11:30am--1:30pm PDT on Weds!!! icml.cc/virtual/2025...
Did a starter pack a while back too of scholars and practitioners who cover this angle in case that’s useful go.bsky.app/5sFqVNS
If it's helpful, I followed the recommendations in this post from @nsaphra.bsky.social and as a result have a much more interesting and ML-focused feed: nsaphra.net/post/bsky/
These are the ML feeds I've pinned that now get mixed into my main feed:
- ML Feed: Trending bsky.app/profile/smcg...
- MLSky: bsky.app/profile/alex...
- GenAI Bluesky Network: bsky.app/profile/hell...
- Nuanced AI Commentary: bsky.app/profile/dame...
Nice! I'll have to check it out
I can recommend following: @simonwillison.net, @metr.org, @abeba.bsky.social, @mmitchell.bsky.social , @wang.social, @sashamtl.bsky.social, @justinhendrix.bsky.social, @bvlsingler.bsky.social
Some of the people I follow to keep up with that side of things. :)
Great list of folks/orgs!
I would love to see more discussion on ML/AI on bsky. Particularly more nuanced discussions of the societal impacts. If you tag in the relevant post, I'll be sure to repost it!
Still not a lot of ML talk on bsky (at least in my feed), hence paper Sunday: my two most interesting recent reads
- H Nets arxiv.org/abs/2507.07955
- Energy Based Transformers arxiv.org/abs/2507.02092
I’ve loved everything about the Red Lobster turnaround:
• A young Nigerian immigrant CEO who previously ran PF Chang (which I love)
• Listened to customers and made swift changes
• Stars in ads, bringing real authenticity to the “we’re fixing it” vibe
Reasons you should donate to EFF this month:
1. We're turning 35! Wish us a happy birthday 🥳
2. We've got cool new swag--our gift to you 👕
3. We're advocating for your rights to privacy and free speech online 👩💻
Anyone at #facct2025 want to go to the acropolis this afternoon?
