#225 - GPT 5.1, Kimi K2 Thinking, Remote Labor Index

Our 225th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!
Recorded on 11/16/2025
Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov (twitter.com/andrey_kurenkov) and co-hosted by Michelle Lee (linkedin.com/in/amichlee)
Feel free to email us your questions and feedback at contact@lastweekinai.comand/or hello@gladstone.ai
Read out our text newsletter and comment on the podcast at lastweekin.ai
In this episode:
• New AI model releases include GPT-5.1 from OpenAI and Ernie 5.0 from Baidu, each with updated features and capabilities.
• Self-driving technology advancements from Baidu’s Apollo Go and Pony AI’s IPO highlight significant progress in the automotive sector.
• Startup funding updates include Incept taking $50M for diffusion models, while Cursor and Gamma secure significant valuations for coding and presentation tools respectively.
• AI-generated content is gaining traction with songs topping charts and new marketplaces for AI-generated voices, indicating evolving trends in synthetic media.

Timestamps:
• (00:01:19) News Preview
• Tools & Apps
• (00:02:13) OpenAI says the brand-new GPT-5.1 is ‘warmer’ and has more ‘personality’ options | The Verge (theverge.com/news/802653/openai-gpt-5-1-upgrad…)
• (00:04:51) Baidu Unveils ERNIE 5.0 and a Series of AI Applications at Baidu World 2025, Ramps Up Global Push (prnewswire.com/news-releases/baidu-unveils-ern…)
• (00:07:00) ByteDance’s Volcano Engine debuts coding agent at $1.3 promo price (techinasia.com/news/bytedances-volcano-engine-…)
• (00:08:04) Google will let users call stores, browse products, and check out using AI | The Verge (theverge.com/news/819431/google-shopping-ai-ge…)
• (00:10:41) Fei-Fei Li's World Labs speeds up the world model race with Marble, its first commercial product | TechCrunch (techcrunch.com/2025/11/12/fei-fei-lis-world-la…)
• (00:13:30) OpenAI says it's fixed ChatGPT's em dash problem | TechCrunch (techcrunch.com/2025/11/14/openai-says-its-fixe…)
• Applications & Business
• (00:16:01) Anthropic announces $50 billion data center plan | TechCrunch (techcrunch.com/2025/11/12/anthropic-announces-…)
• (00:18:06) Baidu teases next-gen AI training, inference accelerators • The Register (theregister.com/2025/11/13/baidu_inference_tra…)
• (00:20:50) Meta chief AI scientist Yann LeCun plans to exit and launch own start-up (ft.com/content/c586eb77-a16e-4363-ab0b-e877898…)
• (00:24:41) Amazon Demands Perplexity Stop AI Tool From Making Purchases - Bloomberg (bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-11-04/amazon-…)
• (00:27:32) AI PowerPoint-killer Gamma hits $2.1B valuation, $100M ARR, founder says | TechCrunch (techcrunch.com/2025/11/10/ai-powerpoint-killer…)
• (00:29:33) Inception raises $50 million to build diffusion models for code and text | TechCrunch (techcrunch.com/2025/11/06/inception-raises-50-…)
• (00:31:14) Coding assistant Cursor raises $2.3B 5 months after its previous round | TechCrunch (techcrunch.com/2025/11/13/coding-assistant-cur…)
• (00:33:56) China's Baidu says it's running 250,000 robotaxi rides a week — same as Alphabet's Waymo (cnbc.com/2025/11/03/china-baidu-robotaxis-alph…)
• (00:35:26) Driverless Tech Firm Pony AI Raises $863 Million in HK Listing (finance.yahoo.com/news/driverless-tech-firm-po…)
• Projects & Open Source
• (00:36:30) Moonshot's Kimi K2 Thinking emerges as leading open source AI (venturebeat.com/ai/moonshots-kimi-k2-thinking-…)
• Research & Advancements
• (00:39:22) [2510.26787] Remote Labor Index: Measuring AI Automation of Remote Work (arxiv.org/abs/2510.26787)
• (00:45:21) OpenAI Researchers Train Weight Sparse Transformers to Expose Interpretable Circuits - MarkTechPost (marktechpost.com/2025/11/14/openai-researchers…)
• (00:49:34) Kimi Linear: An Expressive, Efficient Attention Architecture (arxiv.org/abs/2510.26692)
• (00:53:33) Watch Google DeepMind’s new AI agent learn to play video games | The Verge (theverge.com/tech/819937/google-deepmind-ai-ag…)
• (00:57:34) arXiv Changes Rules After Getting Spammed With AI-Generated 'Research' Papers (404media.co/arxiv-changes-rules-after-getting-…)
• Policy & Safety
• (00:59:35) Stability AI largely wins UK court battle against Getty Images over copyright and trademark | AP News (apnews.com/article/getty-stability-ai-image-co…)
• (01:01:48) Court rules that OpenAI violated German copyright law; orders it to pay damages | TechCrunch (techcrunch.com/2025/11/12/court-rules-that-ope…)
• (01:03:48) Microsoft's $15.2B UAE investment turns Gulf State into test case for US AI diplomacy | TechCrunch (techcrunch.com/2025/11/03/microsofts-15-2b-uae…)
• Synthetic Media & Art
• (01:06:39) An AI-Generated Country Song Is Topping A Billboard Chart, And That Should Infuriate Us All | Whiskey Riff (whiskeyriff.com/2025/11/08/an-ai-generated-cou…)
• (01:10:59) Xania Monet is the first AI-powered artist to debut on a Billboard airplay chart, but she likely won’t be the last | CNN (cnn.com/2025/11/01/entertainment/xania-monet-b…)
• (01:13:34) ElevenLabs’ new AI marketplace lets brands use famous voices for ads | The Verge (theverge.com/news/818470/elevenlabs-iconic-voi…)
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