Author HubMatthias Bastian

Matthias is the co-founder and publisher of THE DECODER, exploring how AI is fundamentally changing the relationship between humans and computers.

AI research

Nov 11, 2025Nov 11, 2025

Update

So-called reasoning models are more efficient but not more capable than regular LLMs, study finds

AI in practice

Oct 31, 2025Oct 31, 2025

Google leans on token metrics, not revenue, adding to bubble talk about AI growth

AI and society

Oct 19, 2025

The long-predicted deepfake dystopia has arrived with Sora 2

AI in practice

Sep 8, 2025Sep 8, 2025

Short

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has picked up on a trend: "it seems like there are really a lot of LLM-run twitter accounts now." No punchline here.

The Dead Internet Theory is a conspiracy theory that claims the internet is no longer driven by real people, but mostly by bots and AI-generated content. According to this idea, most online activity—comments, posts, and articles—is fake, created to manipulate public opinion and control users.

Altman via X

AI and society

Sep 7, 2025Sep 7, 2025

Short

LLM hype critic Gary Marcus argues in a conversation with chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov that large language models only create the appearance of understanding, not genuine intelligence.

"It's one of the most profound illusions of our time that most people see these systems and attribute an understanding to them that they don't really have."

Gary Marcus

He explains that while language models can, for example, mimic the rules of chess by generating text based on examples, they can't actually play the game because they lack any real internal sense of what's happening on the board.

"They will repeat the rules, because in the way that they create text based on other texts, they'll be there. [...] But when it actually comes to playing the game, it doesn't have an internal model of what's going on."

For Marcus, this gap between surface-level performance and true comprehension is at the heart of the AI "illusion of intelligence."

Podcast "Autocracy in America"

AI in practice

Sep 7, 2025Sep 7, 2025

Short

Alibaba unveils Qwen3-Max-Preview, its largest language model yet, featuring more than one trillion parameters. The model is available through Qwen Chat and the Alibaba Cloud API. According to Alibaba, Qwen3-Max-Preview outperforms the previous top model, Qwen3-235B-A22B-2507, in internal benchmarks and with early users. Improvements show up in knowledge, conversation, task handling, and instruction following, with reduced "model knowledge hallucinations."

Qwen3-Max-Preview accepts up to 258,048 input tokens and generates up to 32,768 output tokens. Pricing starts at $2,151 per million input tokens and $8,602 per million output tokens. The model does not support image processing.

via X

AI and society

Sep 6, 2025Sep 6, 2025

Short

Apple is facing a lawsuit in California from authors Grady Hendrix and Jennifer Roberson, who claim the company violated their copyrights by using their books to train AI models like OpenELM and Apple Intelligence. The lawsuit alleges Apple used the Books3 dataset, a collection of more than 196,000 pirated books that includes works by both authors. The complaint also accuses Apple of using its Applebot web crawler to copy website content and pull material from so-called shadow libraries.

The plaintiffs are seeking damages and a court order barring Apple from using their works. This case follows a recent lawsuit against Anthropic, which ended in a settlement after similar copyright claims.

Class Action Lawsuit

AI in practice

Sep 6, 2025Sep 6, 2025

OpenAI says ChatGPT will always make things up, but it could get better at admitting uncertainty

AI in practice

Sep 6, 2025Sep 6, 2025

OpenAI has reportedly misjudged its cash burn by $80 billion

AI in practice

Sep 2, 2025Sep 2, 2025

Short

ElevenLabs has updated its AI sound effects model to version 2, adding support for clips up to 30 seconds, seamless looping, and a 48 kHz sampling rate. Sound effects are generated using text prompts, either through the web interface or the API. Looping options are now built into the ElevenLabs Studio audio editor. You can try it out here.

The SFX library has been expanded and reorganized, with improved search, a favorites list, and a remix feature. The SB-1 soundboard now supports the updated model and offers MIDI connectivity.

Elevenlabs

AI in practice

Sep 2, 2025Sep 2, 2025

Short

OpenAI has acquired the analytics startup Statsig and named its founder, Vijaye Raji, as CTO for applications. Raji will report to Fidji Simo and take over technical leadership of ChatGPT and Codex.

Statsig, which focuses on A/B testing and feature management, is expected to speed up OpenAI's development cycles. OpenAI has already been using Statsig internally and now plans to fully integrate the platform. For now, Statsig will remain a separate unit in Seattle, with all employees joining OpenAI. The deal is valued at $1.1 billion, according to Bloomberg.

OpenAI