Welcome to The Signal, hosted by Fergus Bell and Tom Trewinnard. In this episose they consider Frontier AI, the story of Anthropic’s Mythos and the government-worrying levels of its capabilities. The power of Fable 5 and the regulation of frontier AI models. Are we at risk of losing access to US-owned technology? What about Chinese-owned “open-weight” models and the surge in demand they’ve created for Mac Minis. Should you build on the best models - and absorb the cost? - or the slightly less intelligent models that no one can turn off?

What are the risks for newsrooms and governments with “model sovereignty”? What about the “token tax” - for those people working in other languages than English? Should we think of AI as electricity, the energy behind what we all do? What AI is the safest to use? How do you get enough space, power and water to provide that service? Fergus and Tom consider Elon’s methane turbines (not a 90s indie band, btw) and the ability of governments to control how models are used.

What about the idea of publicly owned AI models? The question is, of course, is it a bubble? But how can an infrastructure be a bubble? The good news, Fable is back and Tom is happily token-maxing.

If you want to understand how the news is being created and distributed, how AI is — and can be — used in newsrooms, insights from media leaders and practical thinking on the future of journalism, as well as honest conversations about what's working and what isn't, then subscribe and follow to stay close to The Signal.

Fergus and Tom will be here every week. Find The Signal on YouTube, Spotify, Apple and wherever you get your podcasts.

Produced by Rob Fitzpatrick

Edited by James Bullock

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.