Andrew Altair

Insights

Short analysis and commentary from the AI world

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University Sector Review: Rapid Cost-Benefit Analysis Final Report (2025)
wa.gov.au

Deloitte report lists an A$260 million discrepancy in a university merger table

Western Australia’s government published Deloitte’s rapid cost-benefit analysis for a possible merger involving three universities. In one Curtin and UWA high-cost scenario, the appendix lists $514 million to Day 1 and $145 million for the following five years. Those figures total A$659 million, while the same row prints A$399 million. A separate three-university low scenario lists A$396 million and A$116 million, which total A$512 million, but prints A$823 million. The report says generative AI supported research collation, information synthesis and editorial proofing, while no AI outputs, modelling or drafting were used. A detailed business case is scheduled to begin in late 2026 and finish in 2027.

#api#developer-tools
University Sector Review: Rapid Cost-Benefit Analysis Final Report (2025)
Oct 26, 20260
Blacksmith hits unicorn valuation after Sequoia leads Series C | TechCrunch
techcrunch.com

Developer platform Blacksmith reaches $1 billion valuation after Sequoia leads $66M round to test AI agent code

Blacksmith, a continuous integration platform engineered to test and verify software code produced by autonomous AI agents, reached a $1 billion valuation after raising a $66 million Series C funding round led by Sequoia Capital. CEO Aditya Jayaprakash emphasized that as autonomous coding models generate an increasing share of enterprise software, automated verification systems become the primary safeguard against hidden regressions and logic bugs. The startup expanded annual recurring revenue 17-fold over the past year, running more than 90 million CI workflows. Total funding has reached $125 million, following a $45 million round two months ago at a $550 million valuation.

#ai-agents#ai#api
Blacksmith hits unicorn valuation after Sequoia leads Series C | TechCrunch
Oct 22, 20260
Tesla starts Optimus robot production in California as profit falls 43% | TechCrunch
techcrunch.com

Tesla begins pilot production of Optimus humanoid robots in California as quarterly profits drop 43% from heavy AI spending

Tesla initiated pilot production of its Optimus humanoid robot at its Fremont factory, describing the newly assembled units in shareholder updates as the first production-quality bots manufactured on its dedicated lines. Elon Musk reiterated plans to scale output to 20000 units weekly by late 2027. However, capital expenditure on compute clusters and robotics weighed heavily on financial results, driving net income down 43% year-over-year to $787 million. Quarterly revenue rose to $28.04 billion with 486532 vehicle deliveries, while AI software VP Ashok Elluswamy signaled that unsupervised autonomous driving deployments are targeted for early 2027.

#tesla#elon-musk#tech-industry
Tesla starts Optimus robot production in California as profit falls 43% | TechCrunch
Oct 22, 20260
Robotic therapy for stroke patients
technologyreview.com

MIT and Purdue researchers build generative AI robotic rehab system to help 5 million annual stroke patients amid therapist shortage

Strokes leave 5 million people worldwide with long-term motor impairments each year, while a growing shortage of physical therapists limits recovery care. To bridge the gap, Purdue professor Johannes Lachner and former MIT researcher Noah Geiger built a generative AI robotic rehab system. Highlighted in MIT Technology Review (MIT Alumni News 77), the robot combines generative AI with real-time force feedback to learn directly from human physical therapists. It then delivers calibrated assistance during 3 core exercises: reaching, lifting arms, and daily living tasks. Lachner emphasizes that the goal is to extend therapists' reach rather than replace them. After successful initial robotic experiments, the team's next phase will build therapist-specific AI profiles and evaluate them in a clinical study with patients who previously received manual therapy.

#api#developer-tools
Robotic therapy for stroke patients
Oct 21, 20260
Hackers hit AI coding tool OpenCode, running up charges on users’ AI accounts | TechCrunch
techcrunch.com

Hackers breached AI coding tool OpenCode and ran up $1,000 API bills while AI safety filters blocked defenders for 48 hours

Open-source coding agent OpenCode disclosed that attackers broke into an older server on its online platform, OpenCode Console, exposing stored API keys for 1.4% of its users. Several developers reported unauthorized OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google AI charges exceeding $1,000. Anthropic and Google blocked the leaked keys while OpenAI refunded affected API credits. Co-founder Dax Raad confirmed the open-source CLI tool was unaffected, though attackers hammered OpenCode systems nonstop for 48 hours. When OpenCode engineers tried using commercial AI models to analyze the exploit payloads, safety filters blocked their defensive requests until the team gained access to OpenAI's Daybreak Blue program. David Sacks noted that Hugging Face hit the same guardrail wall in July.

#openai#ai#anthropic
Hackers hit AI coding tool OpenCode, running up charges on users’ AI accounts | TechCrunch
Oct 20, 20260
Ling 3.0 Flash is the smartest open model at its size
the-decoder.com

Ant Group's Ling 3.0 Flash scores 38 on AI Index with hallucination rate dropping from 97% to 44%

Ant Group's inclusionAI laboratory released Ling 3.0 Flash, an open-weight language model designed for high efficiency in smaller parameter categories. On the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, the model achieved 38 points, matching Qwen3.6 27B while utilizing fewer active parameters. Evaluators identified it as the highest-scoring open model under 124 billion total parameters. In reliability testing on the AA Omniscience benchmark, the model's hallucination rate decreased from 97% to 44% compared to its previous version. The model is distributed under an MIT license on the inclusionAI API and DeepInfra, with open model weights hosted on Hugging Face.

#hugging-face#open-source-ai#api
Ling 3.0 Flash is the smartest open model at its size
Aug 19, 20264
Deepseek ships improved V4 Pro, open-sources its agent software, and raises API prices
the-decoder.com

DeepSeek ships V4 Pro update, open-sources its Harness v0.1 agent software, and raises peak API prices

DeepSeek released build V4-Pro-0813 for its flagship model, published its agent software as open source under the MIT license, and introduced new API pricing tiers. Benchmark results showed Terminal Bench 2.1 scores rising from 72.1 to 87.9, while DeepSWE coding evaluation jumped from 51.5 to 70.3. Artificial Analysis recorded the model's intelligence index score rising from 45 to 53 points. The newly released DeepSeek Harness v0.1 provides autonomous models with bash terminal access and file system navigation tools for automated coding workflows. Starting August 16, peak-hour API rates for 1,000,000 cached input tokens increased from $0.27 to $0.55, with output tokens priced at $3.30, while off-peak rates remained unchanged at $0.14.

#ai-agents#ai#ai-tokens
Deepseek ships improved V4 Pro, open-sources its agent software, and raises API prices
Aug 19, 20262
Gemini 3.7 Flash lands with coding gains and undercuts its three-week-old predecessor's price by 50%
the-decoder.com

Google launches Gemini 3.7 Flash with coding gains and 50% price reduction

Google has released Gemini 3.7 Flash just three weeks after deploying Gemini 3.6 Flash, demonstrating an accelerating model update cadence. Designed specifically for software engineering and autonomous agent workflows, the model delivers notable benchmark gains alongside a 50% API price drop. On the FrontierCode benchmark, Gemini 3.7 Flash jumped from 34.4% to 43.6%, while its DeepSWE evaluation reached 65.3% (up from 49.0%), outperforming Claude Sonnet 5 and GPT-5.6 Terra on key software engineering metrics. Pricing is set at $0.75 per million input tokens and $3.75 per million output tokens, matching the reduced tier across Google AI Studio and Antigravity. The aggressive pricing strategy intensifies competition in the developer tool and agent framework markets.

#openai#gpt#ai
Gemini 3.7 Flash lands with coding gains and undercuts its three-week-old predecessor's price by 50%
Aug 18, 20260
SpaceXAI's Grok 4.6 matches OpenAI's best model and undercuts it on price
the-decoder.com

SpaceXAI releases Grok 4.6 matching GPT-5.6 Sol performance at 60% lower price

SpaceXAI has released Grok 4.6, marking a significant shift in frontier AI model pricing and performance. On the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, Grok 4.6 scored 61 points, tying OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol and trailing only Anthropic's Claude Opus 5 (63) and Claude Fable 5 (62). On real-world agentic computer tasks measured by GDPval-AA v2, Grok 4.6 ranked second overall with an Elo rating of 1,753. The model completed complex multi-step workflows in an average of 53 steps, compared to 103 steps required by Claude Opus 5. Pricing remains fixed at $2 per million input tokens and $6 per million output tokens, making it over 60 percent cheaper than both Claude Opus 5 ($5/$25) and GPT-5.6 Sol ($5/$30). The model is available immediately via API, Cursor, and major cloud providers.

#openai#ai#gpt
SpaceXAI's Grok 4.6 matches OpenAI's best model and undercuts it on price
Aug 13, 20260
Sixteen Nobel-Winning Economists Warn That Major AI Job Losses Are Coming
futurism.com

Over 200 economists and 16 Nobel laureates sign urgent letter warning that AI job losses will outpace the Industrial Revolution

More than 200 economists, tech leaders, and academics, including 16 Nobel Prize winners, have signed an open letter warning that rapid AI development threatens massive job disruptions. The statement, titled "We Must Act Now," was published on July 15, 2026. Signatories include MIT professors Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson, NYU economist Michael Spence, and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. The letter warns that AI will become exponentially more powerful over the next 10 years and could transform the economy faster than the Industrial Revolution. Stanford economist Erik Brynjolfsson, who helped organize the statement, warned that society is unprepared for the upcoming economic changes. The authors call on governments to build safety guardrails, warning that failing to act will worsen income inequality and social instability.

#google#big-tech#stability-ai
Sixteen Nobel-Winning Economists Warn That Major AI Job Losses Are Coming
Jul 22, 202611