TLDR AI

TLDR AI 2025-08-18

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01GENERAL

Sponsored

UNMANAGED AI ACCESS

AI is changing how we work, but adoption is outpacing our ability to secure it. Our research found that _only 21% of security leaders report having full visibility into the AI tools used in their organization_. That lack of visibility represents an unacceptable risk to organizational security.

blog.1password.comSponsor

02HEADLINES & LAUNCHES

OPENAI RELEASES WARMER GPT-5 PERSONALITY

OpenAI is rolling out a friendlier version of GPT-5 with subtle changes after users complained the model felt too formal and that they missed 4o's personality, though internal testing shows no increase in sycophancy.

threadreaderapp.com1 min read

03DEEP DIVES & ANALYSIS

TEACHING GPT-5 TO USE A COMPUTER

Archon is a copilot for Mac and Windows that takes natural language instructions and then performs tasks by taking screenshots, using GPT-5 to create a plan, and then using a custom fine-tuned model to execute clicks and keystrokes. The copilot uses GPT-5's powerful reasoning, combined with tiny fine-tuned models, to control any interface through natural language. This article looks at how Archon was built.

prava.co15 min read

RANKING THE CHINESE OPEN MODEL BUILDERS

This ranking evaluates 19 Chinese labs, not on the raw capabilities of their models, but on their contributions to AI research. Deepseek reigns as a top lab, despite recent quiet periods, with newer companies like Moonshot AI and Zhipu closing the gap after their recent releases of K2 and GLM-4.5, respectively.

interconnects.ai9 min read

35 THOUGHTS ABOUT AGI AND 1 ABOUT GPT-5

The impact of advanced AI far outpaces our understanding of advanced AI—a disconnect that will only widen as we race toward AGI. This sprawling list tackles the fundamental philosophical questions about these systems: Why do teenagers master driving in weeks while Waymo burns through millions of hours? How can LLMs store vastly more facts than human brains despite having fewer connections? Does the 7-month doubling of AI task complexity represent something deeper about cognition itself?

secondthoughts.ai23 min read

THE STATE OF AI 2025

AI startups are growing like nothing we've ever seen - some hit $100M ARR in their first year. Bessemer studied 20 companies and found two types: Supernovas that explode to $125M by year two but have 25% gross margins and fragile retention, and Shooting Stars that quadruple yearly with 60% margins. The new benchmark isn't T2D3 anymore, it's Q2T3 (quadruple, quadruple, triple, triple, triple).

nextbigteng.substack.com10 min read

04ENGINEERING & RESEARCH

GPT-5 CODING TIPS

OpenAI shared a cheat sheet outlining best practices for using GPT-5 in coding scenarios, including prompt design, function calling, and tool use.

cdn.openai.com2 min read

BUILDING A WEB SEARCH ENGINE FROM SCRATCH IN TWO MONTHS WITH 3 BILLION NEURAL EMBEDDINGS

A solo dev built a complete web search engine from the ground up in just two months, leveraging 200 GPUs to generate 3 billion neural embeddings across 280 million indexed pages. The project uses transformer-based embeddings, a dramatic improvement over traditional keyword matching, as it supports much more complex queries.

blog.wilsonl.in34 min read

05MISCELLANEOUS

CHATGPT APP $2B REVENUE

Since launching in 2023, ChatGPT's mobile app has reached $2B in consumer spending, with an average return of $2.91 per install, vastly outpacing other AI mobile apps.

techcrunch.com2 min read

GPT-5 HAS A HIDDEN SYSTEM PROMPT

GPT-5, when accessed via the OpenAI API, has its own hidden system prompt that is independent from the system prompt users specify in their API calls. It is very resistant to sharing the details of this secret system prompt. The prompt seems to specify a level of 'oververbosity' where the assistant prioritizes direct answers with minimal extra content and keeps explanations short unless users ask for more.

simonwillison.net4 min read