Our 241st episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!

Recorded on 04/18/2026

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In this episode:

Anthropic released Claude Opus 4.7 with improved benchmark performance, new reasoning controls, better vision and memory, and a detailed system card discussing deception risk, evaluation-awareness steering, and a training bug that accidentally supervised chain-of-thought in 7–8% of episodes.
Meta unveiled its closed Muse Spark model and “contemplating mode,” highlighting test-time scaling, thought compression, large infrastructure plans like the Hyperion data center, and findings that it shows unusually high evaluation awareness.
OpenAI introduced limited-access GPT 5.4 Cyber for defensive security teams and rolled major Codex updates including computer use, browser and plugins, image generation, and long-horizon task scheduling; competing agent products also launched from Anthropic, Canva, and Adobe.
Business, policy, and safety news included continued government blacklisting litigation affecting Anthropic, CoreWeave compute deals, Perplexity revenue growth tied to agents, a potential Cohere–Aleph Alpha merger, attacks targeting Sam Altman and OpenAI, AI propaganda trends, and new alignment research on automated weak-to-strong supervision and steering evaluation awareness.

Timestamps:

Tools & Apps
(00:05:30) Anthropic releases Claude Opus 4.7, narrowly retaking lead for most powerful generally available LLM | VentureBeat
(00:24:15) Meta debuts the Muse Spark model in a 'ground-up overhaul' of its AI | TechCrunch
(00:34:23) OpenAI Launches GPT-5.4-Cyber with Expanded Access for Security Teams
(00:39:44) OpenAI’s big Codex update is a direct shot at Claude Code | The Verge
(00:42:10) Anthropic launches Claude Design, a new product for creating quick visuals
(00:42:30) Anthropic’s New Product Aims to Handle the Hard Part of Building AI Agents | WIRED
(00:42:54) Canva’s AI 2.0 update goes all in on prompt-powered design tools | The Verge
(00:43:06) Adobe’s new AI Assistant marks a ‘fundamental shift’ in creative work | The Verge
(00:43:38) Gemini can now pull from Google Photos to generate personalized images | The Verge
(00:43:52) Google rolls out a native Gemini app for Mac | TechCrunch
(00:44:04) Chrome now lets you turn AI prompts into repeatable ‘Skills’ | The Verge

Applications & Business
(00:44:22) Anthropic loses appeals court bid to temporarily block Pentagon blacklisting
(00:49:07) Jeff Bezos’ AI lab poaches xAI cofounder Kyle Kozic from OpenAI. | The Verge
(00:51:39) Perplexity's Shift to AI Agents Boosts Revenue 50%
(00:53:53) Anthropic Agrees to Rent CoreWeave AI Capacity to Power Claude
(00:57:32) Canada’s Cohere, Germany’s Aleph Alpha reportedly in merger talks
(01:04:23) ChatGPT has a new $100 per month Pro subscription | The Verge
(01:05:10) OpenAI has bought AI personal finance startup Hiro | TechCrunch
(01:07:03) Allbirds announced a switch from shoes to AI and its stock jumped 600 percent | The Verge

Policy & Safety
(01:19:12) Daniel Moreno-Gama is facing federal charges for attacking Sam Altman’s home and OpenAI’s HQ | The Verge
(01:20:15) Duo accused of shooting at Sam Altman’s house are freed; no charges filed
(01:24:50) The Iranian Lego AI video creators credit their virality to ‘heart’ | The Verge
(01:27:19) Hundreds of Fake Pro-Trump Avatars Emerge on Social Media - The New York Times
(01:27:31) The AI images Trump can’t get enough of | Donald Trump | The Guardian
(01:29:25) Automated Weak-to-Strong Researcher
(01:43:51) Reproducing steering against evaluation awareness in a large open-weight model
(01:49:53) Iran threatens ‘complete and utter annihilation’ of OpenAI's $30B Stargate AI data center in Abu Dhabi — regime posts video with satellite imagery of ChatGPT-maker's premier 1GW data center
(01:53:57) Wall Street Banks Try Out Anthropic’s Mythos as US Urges

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#241 - Opus 4.7, Muse Spark, GPT-5.4-Cyber, HY-World 2.0

Last Week in AI