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Jon Keegan

On the first day of “shipmas,” Sam Altman gave to me...

Yesterday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced that to wrap up the year, the company would celebrate “shipmas” and launch and demo a new product or feature each day for the next 12 days, or as he put it, “The 12 Days of OpenAI.

For the first release, OpenAI announced the “full” version of its latest OpenAI o1 model and a new $200 per month ChatGPT Pro tier that offers unlimited access to the company’s latest models. OpenAI o1’s biggest feature is its ability to use multistep “reasoning” to solve complex problems.

For that extra fee, you can ask ChatGPT to solve the “most challenging” math, science, and programming problems, which it can answer in one to three minutes.

OpenAI seems to be taking cues from its business partner Microsoft by embracing some confusing branding for its growing portfolio of services.

Now, when you pay for ChatGPT Pro (not to be confused with the $20 per month ChatGPT Plus), power users can choose to use “o1 Pro Mode,” which can be used to “ask the model to use even more compute to think even harder on some of the most difficult problems,” one engineer said.

In the livestream of the announcement, Sam Altman sat with three male OpenAI developers who worked on the products and walked through some pretty wonky and boring demos.

In one example, which lives up to a viral TikTok moment, one of the developers asked ChatGPT to “list the Roman emperors of the second century, including their dates and accomplishments.” It took the o1 model 14 seconds to answer.

Another demo involved uploading a hand-drawn sketch of a theoretical space-based, solar-powered AI data center to ChatGPT and asking it to estimate the surface area for a part of the contraption. After 10 seconds, ChatGPT returned an estimate along with a step-by-step solution including formulas and explaining its assumptions.

The demo for “Pro Mode” involved identifying a protein based on six criteria, which it completed in 53 seconds.

For the first release, OpenAI announced the “full” version of its latest OpenAI o1 model and a new $200 per month ChatGPT Pro tier that offers unlimited access to the company’s latest models. OpenAI o1’s biggest feature is its ability to use multistep “reasoning” to solve complex problems.

For that extra fee, you can ask ChatGPT to solve the “most challenging” math, science, and programming problems, which it can answer in one to three minutes.

OpenAI seems to be taking cues from its business partner Microsoft by embracing some confusing branding for its growing portfolio of services.

Now, when you pay for ChatGPT Pro (not to be confused with the $20 per month ChatGPT Plus), power users can choose to use “o1 Pro Mode,” which can be used to “ask the model to use even more compute to think even harder on some of the most difficult problems,” one engineer said.

In the livestream of the announcement, Sam Altman sat with three male OpenAI developers who worked on the products and walked through some pretty wonky and boring demos.

In one example, which lives up to a viral TikTok moment, one of the developers asked ChatGPT to “list the Roman emperors of the second century, including their dates and accomplishments.” It took the o1 model 14 seconds to answer.

Another demo involved uploading a hand-drawn sketch of a theoretical space-based, solar-powered AI data center to ChatGPT and asking it to estimate the surface area for a part of the contraption. After 10 seconds, ChatGPT returned an estimate along with a step-by-step solution including formulas and explaining its assumptions.

The demo for “Pro Mode” involved identifying a protein based on six criteria, which it completed in 53 seconds.

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FT: Meta considering “tens of billions” in new capital to fund AI

Just days after Google announced a monster $85 billion upsized equity raise, the extremely profitable Meta is seeking to sell “tens of billions of dollars” in stock, according to a new report from the Financial Times.

Meta is planning on spending between $125 billion and $145 billion on AI capital expenditure this year alone.

Shares dropped more than 5% on the news.

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FT: Anthropic staff helping the NSA use Mythos for offensive cyberattacks

Anthropic’s Mythos AI model was deemed too dangerous to release to the public, with the company citing its ability to orchestrate novel cyberattacks.

And that’s just what the National Security Agency is doing, with the help of Anthropic staff embedded at the agency, according to a report from the Financial Times.

Only a small number of companies and US allies have been given access to the advanced model, which means America’s adversaries have not had the chance to shore up their defenses against the AI model’s new offensive capabilities.

The arrangement is especially unusual as the Pentagon has deemed Anthropic’s AI a national security supply chain risk — effectively blacklisting it for defense work — in response to the company’s refusal to allow its technology to be used for any legal application, which could include autonomous killing or mass surveillance. Anthropic is currently suing the US government to fight the determination.

Only a small number of companies and US allies have been given access to the advanced model, which means America’s adversaries have not had the chance to shore up their defenses against the AI model’s new offensive capabilities.

The arrangement is especially unusual as the Pentagon has deemed Anthropic’s AI a national security supply chain risk — effectively blacklisting it for defense work — in response to the company’s refusal to allow its technology to be used for any legal application, which could include autonomous killing or mass surveillance. Anthropic is currently suing the US government to fight the determination.

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Longtime Tesla bear JPMorgan upgraded Tesla and raised its price target to $475 from $145

For more than a decade, JPMorgan was Wall Streets most stubborn Tesla skeptic, anchored by auto analyst Ryan Brinkman’s strict focus on traditional car fundamentals and near-term delivery numbers.

But JPM recently handed coverage of the stock to a new analyst, Rajat Gupta, who is throwing that playbook out the window. In a note Friday, the firm upgraded Tesla to neutral from underweight and raised its price target 228% to $475 from $145. (The analyst consensus on FactSet is $403.) Instead of focusing on the company’s struggling vehicle business, the new analyst is orienting himself more toward Tesla’s idea of the future, now modeling Tesla’s physical AI and robotaxi fleets all the way out to the year 2040.

Here are the main reasons for the capitulation:

  • Looking past the car lot: Gupta argues that Tesla is at the forefront of physical AI, entering uncharted TAMs” and therefore deserves the benefit of the doubt to be valued on LT earnings potential rather than near-term speed bumps.

  • Unmatched vertical integration: Teslas control over everything from battery cells to custom silicon gives it a massive moat. JPM notes this starting point advantage is unmatched at an industrial level scale” and “still somewhat under-appreciated and misunderstood.

  • The AWS flywheel effect: Deploying Optimus robots inside its own factories should not only lower COGS for the base automotive business, but more importantly, help validate the product at an industrial scale.” Gupta called it “a classic flywheel effect, somewhat analogous to AWS and Kiva at AMZN.

For Tesla bulls who have argued for years that this is an AI company and not a carmaker, JPM’s sudden $3.9 trillion valuation model is the ultimate validation.

skynet terminator

Anthropic ponders self-improving AI

Anthropic says Claude already writes 80% of its code. A new post asks what happens when the models can improve themselves — and whether anyone could stop them.

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