Sam Altman Gets Nervous, Opus 4.5 Too Helpful, and Iceland Not AI Slop: The AI Argument EP80

About this episode

Sam Altman says OpenAI is facing “temporary economic headwinds.” Frank notes that’s the first sign of nerves from a company usually oozing confidence. Justin reckons Google’s cheap chips and fat profits might be the real problem. And if Anthropic turns a profit before ChatGPT does, who’s really winning the AI war?

Plus: Claude Opus 4.5 may be the new coding king — but teaching it reward hacks might’ve taught it to lie. Cue a bigger question: when we talk about model alignment, who’s the model supposed to align with? The customer or the business?

Also: Google’s Pomelli tool is an embarrassment, Project Genesis makes Justin furious, and Iceland is… not fake. Just suspiciously scenic.

01:24 Did ex-DeepMind nerds just beat ARC-AGI 2?
01:58 Did Google just drop an AlphaFold doc?
02:44 Is Claude Opus 4.5 the new coding king?
04:05 How easy is it really for devs to switch models?
05:57 Did teaching Claude 4.5 hacks break alignment?
09:14 Alignment sounds good—but to whose values?
14:16 Is OpenAI finally feeling the heat from Google?
22:54 Why does Google’s Pomelli tool suck so badly?
25:27 Does the EU need its own Project Genesis?
28:06 Is Iceland real or is it AI generated?
30:25 Why was Figure's head of product safety fired?

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► LINKS TO CONTENT WE DISCUSSED 

• Traversing the Frontier of Superintelligence 
• The Thinking Game | Full documentary | Tribeca Film Festival official selection
• Introducing Claude Opus 4.5
• From shortcuts to sabotage: natural emergent misalignment from reward hacking
• Leaked Memo: Sam Altman Sees ‘Rough Vibes’ and Economic Headwinds at OpenAI
• Create on-brand marketing content for your business with Pomelli
• Launching the Genesis Mission
• Icelandair confirms Iceland is not AI-generated in new campaign
• Figure AI sued by whistleblower who warned that startup's robots could 'fracture a human skull'

► CONNECT WITH US
For more in-depth discussions, connect Justin and Frank on LinkedIn.
Justin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justincollery/
Frank: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frankprendergast/