#large-language-models
174 episodes
#5506: AI Is Way More Than Chatbots
The word "AI" quietly became a synonym for "chatbot." Here's what the full model ecosystem actually contains.
#5461: TTS Can't Pronounce Hebrew Inside English
Your TTS reads Hebrew words with English phonetics. Here's why — and why the obvious fix doesn't work yet.
#5442: When Do LLMs Suddenly Get Good at Things?
New capabilities seem to appear out of nowhere as models scale. Whether that's real — or just how we measure — is still an open fight.
#5438: Why Linguists Left the AI Room
Large language models grew out of linguistics — so why aren't linguists in the room where they're built?
#5410: Adapters: 102KB That Reshapes a 403GB Model
A 102KB adapter file changes how a 403GB base model behaves — without ever merging into it. Here's how model adapters actually work.
#5407: Hemmingway-1 and the War on Waffle
A 27B model promises answers without the preamble. Its benchmark is homegrown — and the behavior it targets has a paper trail.
#5188: DeepSeek's Point Release That Isn't
DeepSeek shipped a whole new architecture and called it a point release. Here's what actually changed inside the model.
#5118: Model Identity Fraud: Distillation or Data Contamination?
When AI models lie about who they are, is it stolen knowledge or just contaminated training data?
#5056: How AI Writes a 30-Minute Podcast in One Pass
What does it take for a model to write a full episode without edits? The answer involves context windows, repetition, and a surprising architecture...
#5041: GPT-6 Astra, 100K GPUs, and the AGI Question
OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra arrives with an AGI claim and a 100K-GPU training run. We break down what Stargate LLC actually is and whether the scale justi...
#4994: How AI Characters Can Actually Grow
Moving beyond static lore books to build characters with real history and evolution.
#4834: Why Your AI Bill Keeps Surprising You
How a 37-cent project and a $100 simulation reveal the hidden math of AI API pricing.
#4822: Cloud-Local AI Hybrid: Does It Actually Work?
Can you pair Claude's reasoning with a local Qwen 7B for savings? The gap is wider than you think.
#4791: When AI Critiques Our Terminology
Can AI spot conceptual sloppiness in how we describe it? A podcast moment reveals something unexpected.
#4789: How LLMs Actually Know When to Stop
Three layers of stop signals, from EOS tokens to context limits — and why none of them really "know" when to stop.
#4723: Are Model Families Actually Different Models?
Claude Opus, Sonnet, and Haiku aren't trim levels — they're different models sharing a brand name.
#4701: Why Claude Code Re-Introduces Itself to Your Repo
Claude Code remembers your preferences but not your codebase. We explore why that's by design and how to work around it.
#4696: Why AI Over-Explains Simple Tasks
Why does AI turn a simple request into a 24-page document? We explore the training biases and architectural limits behind AI's tendency to over-del...
#4670: Why AI Weights Are Indecipherable
Can you actually read an AI model's weights like a book? We explore why the answer is mostly no — and what researchers are doing about it.
#4669: What "Distribution" Really Means in AI Models
Unpacking what "distribution" actually means under the hood — and why training data variety shapes model behavior.
#4658: Will AI Coding Kill Programming Languages?
Machines now write code better than humans. What happens to Python, TypeScript, and COBOL when no human reads the code?
#4657: From Plugboards to JIT: Who Controls the Hardware?
How the relationship between programming languages and hardware shifted from total programmer control to runtime autonomy.
#4656: Books That Outlive Frameworks: A Dev's Guide
Skip the API docs. Learn the data model, type system, and patterns that survive framework churn.
#4589: The Answer Reflex: Why AI Models Can't Follow Instructions
DeepSeek passes a simple test that stumps GPT and Claude. Why can't Western models stay in character?