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- š¤Apple Challenges AGI Claims
š¤Apple Challenges AGI Claims
PLUS: Metaās Billion-Dollar AI Bet

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AI isnāt reasoning its way to AGI yetāApple researchers say todayās models collapse under complex tasks
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Meta targets scale AI in Billion-Dollar playāZuckerbergās AI ambitions may push Meta into one of the biggest private AI deals ever
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In other AI newsāElon Muskās feud with Donald Trump could complicate xAIās $5B debt deal, Alibaba releases new open-source embedding models to cement its global lead, and RedNote enters the AI race with its own model it claims outperforms Alibaba and DeepSeek
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Key Points
Apple tested top models on custom puzzles and found their reasoning broke down as complexity increased.
The study shows models fail to apply consistent logic especially beyond basic benchmarks or familiar patterns.
š°News - Despite growing claims that artificial general intelligence or AGI is just a few years away Apple researchers say thereās still a significant gap between todayās AI models and human-like reasoning.
In a new paper titled The Illusion of Thinking the team tested leading large language models and found their reasoning abilities to be inconsistent, shallow, and often misleading.
š§Beyond the Benchmarks - Models like OpenAIās o1 and o3-mini Claude Sonnet and DeepSeekās R1 and V3 were put through custom designed puzzle tasks that went beyond standard math and coding benchmarks. While these models often got the right answer early on they tended to overthink the problem and arrive at the wrong conclusion especially as complexity increased.
The researchers found that large reasoning models appear to mimic reasoning patterns rather than actually understand or generalize them. They also donāt reliably use explicit algorithms and struggle with exact computation. In other words the models often look like they are reasoning but fall apart when the task requires deeper logic.
These findings challenge the optimistic timelines from AI leaders like Sam Altman and Dario Amodei who have said AGI is just around the corner. Appleās results suggest we may be underestimating how much progress is still needed before AI can truly reason like a human.
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This weekās topic: Integration
Key Points
Meta is reportedly in talks to invest over $10 billion in Scale AI, its biggest external AI deal yet.
Meta and Scale already collaborate on military AI tools, including a defense-focused version of the Llama 3 model.
āØļøNews - Meta is in discussions to invest more than $10 billion in Scale AI, in what could become its largest external AI investment to date. If the deal goes through, it would also rank among the biggest private fundraising rounds ever in the AI space.
Scale AI is known for its data labeling services, which are used by companies like Microsoft and OpenAI to train their models. Last year, Scale brought in $870 million in revenue and is projecting $2 billion this year.
šØāš»Why this matters - This move would be a rare one for Meta, which has mostly relied on internal research and an open development approach to advance its AI efforts. While other tech giants like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google have funneled billions into AI startups, often by offering access to cloud computing, Meta has stayed largely in-house. Unlike those companies, Meta does not have a cloud business, and it is not yet clear what form this investment would take.
š¤See also - Meta and Scale already work together on Defense Llama, a specialized version of Metaās Llama 3 model built for military applications. The two companies also share an interest in defense tech.
Just last week, Meta announced a partnership with defense contractor Anduril to co-develop military tools, including an AI-powered headset for virtual and augmented reality use. With CEO Mark Zuckerberg committing up to $65 billion toward AI projects this year, Metaās ambitions in the space are only getting bigger.
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šš»āāļøWhat else is happening?
Musk vs Trump may affect xAIās $5 billion debt deal // While the online feud between Elon Musk and President Donald Trump seemed to drive traffic to Muskās social media platform X formerly Twitter it could also create issues for the platformās parent company xAI
Alibaba unveils new open source AI embedding models a field it leads globally // Has made its Qwen3 embedding series available for developers in the Chinese tech giantās latest bid to solidify its global leadership in open source artificial intelligence (AI) models.
RedNote joins AI race with its own open source model that it says bests Alibaba, DeepSeek // The company known for its Instagram like platform on Friday unveiled dots.llm1, a mixture of experts large language model
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