Author HubMaximilian Schreiner

Max is the managing editor of THE DECODER, bringing his background in philosophy to explore questions of consciousness and whether machines truly think or just pretend to.
AI in practice

OpenAI launches GPT-5 as a unified system with adaptive reasoning for complex tasks

AI in practice

OpenAI releases its first open-weight language models since GPT-2 with GPT-oss

AI in practice

Google upgrades Gemini with Deep Think and flags early warning risks

Ad
AI in practice
Short

Tesla has signed a $16.5 billion deal with Samsung, locking in a massive supply agreement that runs through 2033 and could provide a lifeline for Samsung's struggling foundry division.

Tesla will source its AI6 semiconductors from Samsung, giving the South Korean tech giant a boost just as it faces shrinking market share in chip manufacturing. Samsung's share of the global foundry market recently dipped from 8.1 percent to 7.7 percent, while industry leader TSMC holds a dominant 67.6 percent.

Tesla's system-on-chips power its vehicles and, in the future, will also be used in its Optimus humanoid robots, handling perception and planning for Tesla's FSD (Full Self-Driving) system. Samsung already manufactures Tesla's HW4 (Hardware 4) chips, which are currently at the heart of the FSD platform. The next generation, AI5 (previously known as Hardware 5), is set to be produced by TSMC starting in late 2026 - first in Taiwan, then later at a new facility in Arizona.

The deal is seen as a vote of confidence in Samsung's upcoming 2-nanometer fabrication technology and could help the company's foundry business run closer to full capacity.

AI and society
Short

According to Forbes, the AI startup Cognition is negotiating with investors for funding of over 300 million US dollars at a valuation of 10 billion US dollars. Founders Fund and Khosla Ventures are among those involved. As recently as March, Cognition was valued at 4 billion US dollars, led by 8VC, the company of Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale. According to a source, the talks have not yet been finalized. Cognition is known for its programming agent Devin and recently acquired the rest of the AI coding start-up Windsurf after its founders unexpectedly switched to Google and OpenAI's planned takeover fell through.

Cognition, the AI startup behind the Devin coding agent, is reportedly in talks with investors to raise over $300 million at a $10 billion valuation, according to Forbes. Investors involved include Founders Fund and Khosla Ventures. Just in March, Cognition was valued at $4 billion in a round led by 8VC, the venture firm founded by Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale. The current negotiations are not yet finalized.

Cognition recently acquired the remaining assets of Windsurf, another AI coding startup, after Windsurf's founder unexpectedly joined Google and a planned acquisition by OpenAI fell through.

Ad
Ad
AI in practice
Short

Google's new AI-powered search feature, Web Guide, automatically suggests several related searches for each query.

Web Guide is built on a modified version of Gemini designed to better interpret both user questions and web content. The system uses a different query method, running multiple related searches in parallel to surface the most relevant results.

This strategy makes it easier to find websites that might otherwise go unnoticed. The experimental feature organizes web links by topic, highlighting different angles of a user's search. Google is currently testing Web Guide in its Search Labs program and plans to expand AI-organized results to more areas of Search over time.

Google's experimental Web Guide organizes web links by topic and highlights different search angles. | Video: Google

AI in practice
Short

The US Food and Drug Administration is relying on Elsa, a generative AI system, to help evaluate new drugs - even though, according to insiders, it regularly fabricates studies.

"Anything that you don’t have time to double-check is unreliable. It hallucinates confidently," one current FDA employee told CNN, describing the AI system known as Elsa (Efficient Language System for Analysis), which is supposed to speed up drug approvals. Several staff members reported that Elsa frequently invents studies or misrepresents research data - a well-known issue with large language models. The FDA's head of AI, Jeremy Walsh, acknowledged the problem: "Elsa is no different from lots of [large language models] and generative AI. They could potentially hallucinate."

Despite these risks, Elsa is already being used to review clinical protocols and assess risks during inspections. The system operates in a regulatory gray area, since there are currently no binding rules for AI in US healthcare.

CNN
Ad
Ad
AI in practice
Short

Google is rolling out new AI-powered features in the Google Photos app. With the new "Photo to video" tool, users can turn individual photos into short, six-second video clips with subtle motion effects. This feature is powered by Google's Veo 2 model and is launching now in the US on both Android and iOS. Another addition, the "Remix" function, lets users transform photos into anime, comics, or 3D animations. Remix will also launch in the US in the coming weeks. Both tools automatically mark generated content with a visible and invisible watermark to improve traceability. Google is also adding a new "Create" tab to the app, which collects all creative tools in one place. The tab will start rolling out to US users in August.

Video: Google

Ad
Ad
AI in practice
Short

Google's latest AI features are now reaching billions of users each month.

AI Overviews, which display AI-generated summaries directly in Google Search, have rolled out to over 200 countries and now serve two billion monthly users. For searches where this feature appears, Google is seeing more than a 10% increase in search activity.

The Gemini app has reached 450 million monthly active users, with daily requests up more than 50% compared to the previous quarter. The new AI Mode, a chat interface built into Search, has already surpassed 100 million monthly active users in the US and India.

Google's text-to-video model Veo 3 has been used to generate over 70 million videos since May. The Google Vids tool, built on Veo, now approaches one million monthly active users.

Google News

Bank details

IBAN: DE87 1203 0000 1086 0070 75
Account holder: DEEP CONTENT GbR
Purpose: Support THE DECODER
AI in practice

OpenAI launches GPT-5 as a unified system with adaptive reasoning for complex tasks

AI research

Google Deepmind's Genie 3 creates interactive 3D worlds that stay consistent for "multiple minutes"

AI in practice

Google upgrades Gemini with Deep Think and flags early warning risks

Google News