April 10, 2025 News
Google Plans to Combine Gemini Language Models with Veo Video Generation Capabilities
Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis announced plans to eventually merge their Gemini AI models with Veo video-generating models to create more capable multimodal systems with better understanding of the physical world. This aligns with the broader industry trend toward "omni" models that can understand and generate multiple forms of media, with Hassabis noting that Veo's physical world understanding comes largely from training on YouTube videos.
Skynet Chance (+0.05%): Combining sophisticated language models with advanced video understanding represents progress toward AI systems with comprehensive world models that understand physical reality. This integration could lead to more capable and autonomous systems that can reason about and interact with the real world, potentially increasing the risk of systems that could act independently.
Skynet Date (-3 days): The planned integration of Gemini and Veo demonstrates accelerated development of systems with multimodal understanding spanning language, images, and physics. Google's ability to leverage massive proprietary datasets like YouTube gives them unique advantages in developing such comprehensive systems, potentially accelerating the timeline toward more capable and autonomous AI.
AGI Progress (+0.09%): The integration of language understanding with physical world modeling represents significant progress toward AGI, as understanding physics and real-world causality is a crucial component of general intelligence. Combining these capabilities could produce systems with more comprehensive world models and reasoning that bridges symbolic and physical understanding.
AGI Date (-3 days): Google's plans to combine their most advanced language and video models, leveraging their unique access to YouTube's vast video corpus for physical world understanding, could accelerate the development of systems with more general intelligence. This integration of multimodal capabilities likely brings forward the timeline for achieving key AGI components.
Ex-OpenAI CTO's Startup Seeks Record $2 Billion Seed Funding at $10 Billion Valuation
Thinking Machines Lab, founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, is reportedly targeting a $2 billion seed funding round at a $10 billion valuation despite having no product or revenue. The company has been attracting high-profile AI researchers, including former OpenAI executives Bob McGrew and Alec Radford, and aims to develop AI systems that are "more widely understood, customizable, and generally capable."
Skynet Chance (+0.03%): The unprecedented funding level and concentration of elite AI talent increases the likelihood of rapid capability advances that might outpace safety considerations. While the stated goal of creating "more widely understood" systems is positive, the emphasis on building "generally capable" AI potentially increases development pressure in the direction of systems with greater autonomy and capability.
Skynet Date (-2 days): The massive funding influx and congregation of top AI talent at a new company intensifies the competitive landscape and could accelerate the development timeline for advanced AI systems. The ability to raise such extraordinary funding without a product indicates extremely strong investor confidence in near-term breakthroughs.
AGI Progress (+0.06%): While no technical breakthrough is reported, the concentration of elite AI talent (including key figures behind OpenAI's most significant advances) and unprecedented funding represents a meaningful reorganization of resources that could accelerate progress. The company's stated goal of building "generally capable" AI systems indicates a direct focus on AGI-relevant capabilities.
AGI Date (-3 days): The formation of a new well-funded competitor with elite talent intensifies the race dynamic in AI development, likely accelerating timelines across the industry. The extraordinary valuation without a product suggests investors believe AGI-relevant breakthroughs could occur in the near to medium term rather than distant future.
Reasoning AI Models Drive Up Benchmarking Costs Eight-Fold
AI reasoning models like OpenAI's o1 are substantially more expensive to benchmark than their non-reasoning counterparts, costing up to $2,767 to evaluate across seven popular AI benchmarks compared to just $108 for non-reasoning models like GPT-4o. This cost increase is primarily due to reasoning models generating up to eight times more tokens during evaluation, making independent verification increasingly difficult for researchers with limited budgets.
Skynet Chance (+0.04%): The increasing cost barrier to independently verify AI capabilities creates an environment where only the models' creators can fully evaluate them, potentially allowing dangerous capabilities to emerge with less external scrutiny and oversight.
Skynet Date (-1 days): The rising costs of verification suggest an accelerating complexity in AI models that could shorten timelines to advanced capabilities, while simultaneously reducing the number of independent actors able to validate safety claims.
AGI Progress (+0.08%): The emergence of reasoning models that generate significantly more tokens and achieve better performance on complex tasks demonstrates substantial progress toward more sophisticated AI reasoning capabilities, a critical component for AGI.
AGI Date (-3 days): The development of models that can perform multi-step reasoning tasks effectively enough to warrant specialized benchmarking suggests faster-than-expected progress in a key AGI capability, potentially accelerating overall AGI timelines.
xAI Releases Grok 3 API with Reasoning Capabilities at Premium Pricing
Elon Musk's AI company xAI has launched an API for its flagship Grok 3 model, offering both standard and mini versions with reasoning capabilities. The pricing is relatively high compared to competitors, with Grok 3 costing $3 per million input tokens and $15 per million output tokens, while also falling short of previously claimed capabilities like its context window.
Skynet Chance (+0.01%): While Grok 3's release adds another advanced AI model to the ecosystem, its capabilities appear comparable to existing models rather than representing a significant breakthrough that would increase existential risk from advanced AI.
Skynet Date (+0 days): Grok 3's capabilities and pricing positioning suggest it's keeping pace with industry developments rather than accelerating or decelerating timelines toward potentially unsafe AI scenarios.
AGI Progress (+0.03%): The addition of reasoning capabilities to Grok 3 represents incremental progress in AI reasoning abilities, though benchmark reports suggest it's not outperforming existing leading models in a way that significantly advances the field toward AGI.
AGI Date (+0 days): As xAI appears to be following rather than leading the development curve with capabilities comparable to existing models, Grok 3's release doesn't meaningfully affect expected AGI timelines.