AlphaEvolve is not the first system to exhibit self-improvement, but it may be the most impressive yet. AI is literally improving the hardware, architectures, data and training methods of AI itself. A deep dive into the paper, drawing on two previous interviews and 5 other papers. Plus a snippet on OpenAI’s new Codex system.

Gray Swan: http://app.grayswan.ai/ai-explained

AI Insiders ($9!): https://www.patreon.com/AIExplained

Chapters:
00:00 - Introduction
00:27 - AlphaEvolve
05:23 - Limitation
06:10 - Achievements
08:21 - Future Improvements
13:30 - Quirks
16:34 - Final Thoughts

AlphaEvolve release: https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/alphaevolve-a-gemini-powered-coding-agent-for-designing-advanced-algorithms/

Paper: https://storage.googleapis.com/deepmind-media/DeepMind.com/Blog/alphaevolve-a-gemini-powered-coding-agent-for-designing-advanced-algorithms/AlphaEvolve.pdf

Terence Tao Quote: https://mathstodon.xyz/@tao/114508029896631083

Nature Article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05172-4
MIT Article: https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/14/1116438/google-deepminds-new-ai-uses-large-language-models-to-crack-real-world-problems/
AI Co-Scientist: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2502.18864

OpenAI Codex: https://openai.com/index/introducing-codex/


70% of Pull Requests: https://x.com/slow_developer/status/1920920456393028027

Amodei Essay: https://www.darioamodei.com/essay/machines-of-loving-grace

OpenAI Jason Wei Tweet: https://x.com/_jasonwei/status/1923091260354531612

PromptBreeder: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2309.16797
DrEureka: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2406.01967

FT DeepMind: https://www.ft.com/content/4e497a91-670a-4f69-be4a-18e247daba3e



Non-hype Newsletter: https://signaltonoise.beehiiv.com/

A green card, o3 vs Gemini 2.5, 6 Benchmarks and a whole bunch of my thoughts on what on earth is happening in AI, from here to 2030. Plus, how AI is becoming pay-to-win, and why. Crazy times, 14 mins probably wasn’t enough.

https://app.grayswan.ai/ai-explained

AI Insiders ($9!): https://www.patreon.com/AIExplained

Chapters:
00:00 - Introduction
00:33 - FictionLiveBench
01:37 - PHYBench
02:14 - SimpleBench
02:54 - Virology Capabilities Test
03:13 - Mathematics Performance
04:29 - Vision Benchmarks
05:43 - V* and how o3 works
06:44 - Revenue and costs for you
08:54 - Expensive RL and trade-offs
09:40 - How to spend the OOMs
13:27 - Gray Swan Arena

Green Card: https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/25/an-openai-researcher-who-worked-on-gpt-4-5-had-their-green-card-denied/
PHYBench: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2504.16074Virologytest: https://www.virologytest.ai/
How o3 Vision Works: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2312.14135 https://x.com/sainingxie/status/1912570624523829573
Visual puzzles: https://neulab.github.io/VisualPuzzles/
Fiction Bench: https://x.com/ficlive/status/1912863028141244850
https://geobench.org/
https://simple-bench.com/
AIME 2025: https://openai.com/index/introducing-o3-and-o4-mini/
USAMO: https://x.com/mbalunovic/status/1914398518896193747
NaturalBench: https://linzhiqiu.github.io/papers/naturalbench/
Where’s Waldo: https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/492792384225896298/
IMO and AlphaProof:https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/ai-solves-imo-problems-at-silver-medal-level/
Crazy Revenue: https://www.theinformation.com/articles/openai-forecasts-revenue-topping-125-billion-2029-agents-new-products-gain?rc=sy0ihq
Number of Users: https://www.theinformation.com/briefings/googles-gemini-user-numbers-revealed-court?rc=sy0ihq
Subscriptions pay to win: https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulmonckton/2025/04/23/google-leak-reveals-new-gemini-ai-subscription-levels/
GPU Trade-offs: https://x.com/sama/status/1915098951067554030
RL Scale-up Amodei: https://www.darioamodei.com/post/on-deepseek-and-export-controls
Log-linear Returns: https://x.com/bobmcgrewai/status/1895228291981943265
2030 Scaling: https://epoch.ai/blog/can-ai-scaling-continue-through-2030
Model Size: https://x.com/slow_developer/status/1874554473256997201
Adam on AGI: https://x.com/TheRealAdamG/status/1913998366632968381
Papers on Patreon: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2502.01839
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2504.13837
Chollet Quote: https://x.com/fchollet/status/1912934762580447447
OpenSim: https://opensim.stanford.edu/


Non-hype Newsletter: https://signaltonoise.beehiiv.com/

Critical analysis of the two most powerful new models behind ChatGPT, o3 and o4-mini. Not just the system cards, benchmarks, and my own tests, but some you may not have seen before. Yes, they can whip up amazing front-end in a few seconds, but you always have to ask what is in their data. Either way, they prove the gains from RL are just beginning…

https://weave-docs.wandb.ai/?utm_source=sponsorship&utm_medium=simple_bench&utm_campaign=ai_explained

AI Insiders ($9!): https://www.patreon.com/AIExplained


Chapters:
00:00 - o3 and o4-mini


https://simple-bench.com/

Plus, Teams and Pro, plus token count: https://x.com/btibor91/status/1912568994512662679

System Card: https://openai.com/index/o3-o4-mini-system-card/

Release Notes: https://openai.com/index/introducing-o3-and-o4-mini/

https://deepmind.google/technologies/gemini/pro/

https://x.com/DeryaTR_/status/1912558350794961168

https://x.com/polynoamial/status/1912564068168450396

API Pricing:https://openai.com/api/pricing/

https://aider.chat/docs/leaderboards/


Non-hype Newsletter: https://signaltonoise.beehiiv.com/