LWiAI Podcast #252 - GPT 5.6, Grok 4.5, Nemotron-Labs-Diffusion, AI 2040

OpenAI publicly rolled out GPT-5.6 (including Sol and Luna) and rebranded its desktop agentic coding product as ChatGPT Work, amid disputed claims about US government green-lighting and delays, and concerns over inconsistent frontier-model oversight and jailbreakability. SpaceX AI launched Grok 4.5 as a low-cost, Opus-class coding model with minimal safety documentation, while Meta released Muse Spark 1.1 with aggressive pricing and large coding/cyber benchmark gains. AI 2040 proposed US–China coordination to slow progress until alignment improves.

LWiAI Podcast 252 - GPT 5.6, Grok 4.5, Nemotron-Labs-Diffusion, AI 2040 Last Week in AI https://lastweekin.ai GPT-5.6 and Grok 4.5, Meta's Muse Spark 1.1, regulatory developments in AI and data centers, interpretability research from Anthropic, and the future of AI policy with AI 2040 Note from Last Week in AI Andrey : I’m back And i’m sorry for putting the substack on a silent pause, work got a bit too overwhelming so I fell behind on this. I’ll do my best to resume normal posting, starting with catching up on podcast episodes missing from here which are not last week… but I guess I should post them still, sorry for the spam I’ve also paused paid subscriptions until I can get back to consistent posting. Apologies for the flakiness, and thanks for being a subscriber Our 252th episode with a summary and discussion of last week’s big AI news Recorded on 07/11/2026 Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov https://twitter.com/andrey kurenkov and Jeremie Harris https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremieharris/ Feel free to email us your questions and feedback at andreyvkurenkov@gmail.com and/or hello@gladstone.ai mailto:hello@gladstone.ai In this episode: OpenAI /glossary/openai publicly rolled out GPT-5.6 including Sol and Luna and rebranded its desktop agentic coding product as ChatGPT /compare/chatgpt-vs-claude Work, amid disputed claims about whether the US government effectively green-lit and delayed the release and concerns about inconsistent, ad hoc frontier-model oversight and jailbreakability.New model releases intensified pricing and capability competition: SpaceX AI’s Grok /compare/mistral-large-vs-grok-2 4.5 launched as a very low-cost, Opus-class coding model with minimal safety documentation, while Meta released Muse Spark 1.1 with aggressive pricing, large coding/cyber benchmark /glossary/benchmark gains, and a lengthy safety evaluation /glossary/evaluation .Meta also previewed Muse Video and rolled out Muse Image before quickly backtracking after backlash over easy generation of images of public Instagram accounts; separately, Chinese open-source models grew to over 30% of weekly OpenRouter tokens as cost pressure increased, alongside discussion of risks like potential insider threats. Infrastructure, policy, and safety developments included Meta exploring selling AI compute /glossary/compute as a cloud business, US energy regulators pressing grid operators on large-load data-center connections, Anthropic /glossary/anthropic publishing a “global workspace” interpretability method for verbalizable internal representations, reports that China may restrict overseas access to top models, and AI 2040 proposing US–China coordination to slow progress until alignment improves. Timestamps note - these don’t take into account dynamically inserted ads and therefore may be off by a couple of minutes : 00:00:10 Intro / Banter 00:01:33 News Preview Tools & Apps 00:02:03 OpenAI rolls out GPT-5.6 after government greenlight — and announces ‘ChatGPT Work’ | The Verge https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/963464/openai-gpt-5-6-codex-chatgpt-work + The new ChatGPT superapp takes aim at Claude Desktop https://www.pcworld.com/article/3188176/the-new-chatgpt-superapp-takes-aim-at-claude-desktop.html + OpenAI is shutting down its Atlas web browser https://mashable.com/tech/openai-shut-down-atlas-browser + OpenAI’s latest AI model likely has similar cyber vulnerabilities to one that led to U.S. export controls on Anthropic’s Fable, British agency says https://fortune.com/2026/07/10/openai-gpt-5-6-sol-jailbreaks-cyber-attacks-similar-to-security-flaw-that-led-u-s-government-to-force-anthropic-to-disable-fable-5/ 00:15:41 SpaceXAI, Cursor Launch Grok 4.5 AI Model for Finance, Legal Applications - Bloomberg https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-08/spacexai-cursor-unveil-grok-ai-model-for-legal-finance-tasks + SpaceXAI’s Grok 4.5 Undercuts Anthropic and OpenAI on Coding Agent Pricing https://devops.com/spacexais-grok-4-5-undercuts-anthropic-and-openai-on-coding-agent-pricing/ 00:20:29 Meta says its new AI model is ready to compete on coding | The Verge https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/963193/meta-muse-spark-model-api 00:27:21 Introducing Muse Image and Muse Video https://ai.meta.com/blog/introducing-muse-image-muse-video-msl/ + https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/10/technology/meta-muse-images-instagram-removal.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/10/technology/meta-muse-images-instagram-removal.html 00:29:01 Chinese AI models gain ground with U.S. companies as costs surge https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/07/chinese-ai-models-costs-us-openai-anthropic.html + Anthropic and OpenAI Face a New Threat from China https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2026-07-08/anthropic-and-openai-face-a-new-threat-from-cheap-chinese-ai Applications & Business 00:35:21 Meta Is Planning a Cloud Business to Sell AI Computing Power - Bloomberg https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-01/meta-is-building-a-cloud-business-to-sell-excess-ai-compute 00:46:32 US energy regulator sets ultimatum for data centres https://www.ft.com/content/5055a170-69d9-4eb6-ad93-be953bbad263?syn-25a6b1a6=1&shem=isphe, + Grid operator PJM orders emergency steps to avoid large-scale US power outages https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/grid-operator-pjm-orders-emergency-steps-avoid-large-scale-us-power-outages-2026-07-02/?shem=isphe, Projects & Open Source Policy & Safety 00:58:30 Verbalizable Representations Form a Global Workspace in Language Models https://transformer-circuits.pub/2026/workspace/index.html 01:09:29 Beijing is looking at curbing overseas access to China’s top AI models, sources say https://www.reuters.com/world/beijing-is-looking-curbing-overseas-access-chinas-top-ai-models-sources-say-2026-07-07/ 01:12:53 The ex-OpenAI employee behind ‘AI 2027’ recommends a rosier path - The Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/07/09/ex-openai-employee-behind-ai-2027-has-new-peppier-prediction/ + AI 2040: Plan A https://ai-2040.com/ Get AI news in your inbox Daily digest of what matters in AI. Key Terms Explained Anthropic /glossary/anthropic An AI safety company founded in 2021 by former OpenAI researchers, including Dario and Daniela Amodei. Benchmark /glossary/benchmark A standardized test used to measure and compare AI model performance. Claude /glossary/claude Anthropic's family of AI assistants, including Claude Haiku, Sonnet, and Opus. Compute /glossary/compute The processing power needed to train and run AI models.