All Segments
Is AI Slowing Down? Nathan Labenz Says We're Asking the Wrong Question
12 segments available
Nathan Labenz is one of the clearest voices analyzing where AI is headed, pairing sharp technical analysis with his years of work on The Cognitive Revolution. In this episode, Nathan joins a16z’s Erik Torenberg to ask a pressing question: is AI progress slowing down, or are we just getting used to the breakthroughs? They cover the debate over GPT-5, the state of reasoning and automation, the future of agents and engineering work, and how we can build a positive vision for where AI goes next. Timecodes: 00:00 Intro 01:14 Cal Newport’s “AI slowdown” argument 03:08 Are students getting lazy? 04:55 Nathan's two-by-two matrix of AI impact 07:00 Scaling laws, GPT-4.5, and what changed with GPT-5 11:05 Longer context windows and better reasoning 17:05 AI as scientist and real discoveries 19:17 GPT-5’s shift and why launch perception matters 26:10 Jobs, automation, and the misunderstood METR study 36:20 The future of coding, agents, and recursive self-improvement 51:15 Beyond chatbots: multimodal AI and robotics 1:27:00 Why the future depends on a positive vision for AI Resources: Follow Nathan on X: https://x.com/labenz Listen to the Cognitive Revolution: https://open.spotify.com/show/6yHyok3M3BjqzR0VB5MSyk Watch Cognitive Revolution: https://www.youtube.com/@CognitiveRevolutionPodcast Stay Updated: If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, and share with your friends! Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.
Segments Timeline
Intro
"AI is not synonymous with language models. AI is being developed with pretty similar architectures for a wide range of different modalities and there's a lot more data there. Feedback is starting to c..."
Cal Newport’s “AI slowdown” argument
"distinct question from are the capabilities that we're seeing continuing to advance and you know at a pretty healthy clip. Um so I actually found a lot of agreement with the uh Cal Newport podcast tha..."
Are students getting lazy?
"maybe the most easily refutable claim from my perspective is GPT5 wasn't that much better than GPT4. And that I think is where I really was like, whoa, wait a second. You know, I was with you on a lot..."
Nathan's two-by-two matrix of AI impact
"and it was all kind of this moment of like, whoa, this thing is like exploding onto the scene. A lot of people were seeing it for the first time. And if you look back to GPT3, you know, there's a huge..."
Scaling laws, GPT-4.5, and what changed with GPT-5
"better and sort of order of magnitude and so the difference between GB22 and GPD3 and then GBD3 and GBD4 um but then that sort of you know was significant the difference but then it achieved sort of a..."
Longer context windows and better reasoning
"had as public users was only 8,000 tokens of context, which is like 15, you know, pages of of text. So, you were limited. You couldn't even put in like a couple papers. You would be overflowing the co..."
AI as scientist and real discoveries
"the team. And they gave it legitimately unsolved problems in science. And in one particularly famous kind of notorious case, it came up with a hypothesis which it wasn't able to verify because it does..."
GPT-5’s shift and why launch perception matters
"that they kind of up the launch, you know, simply put, right? They like were tweeting Death Star images, uh, which Sam Alman later came back and said, "No, you're the Death Star. I'm not the Death Sta..."
Jobs, automation, and the misunderstood METR study
"around um you know, people being replaced in the next next few years in in in in in mass. I think when we spoke maybe a year ago about this or I think you said something like 50% of 50% of jobs. Um I'..."
The future of coding, agents, and recursive self-improvement
"future and and we saw open AI uh make make moves um there as well. Why don't we flush that out or talk a little about you know what what inspired that and where you see that going? You know, utopia or..."
Beyond chatbots: multimodal AI and robotics
"banana from Google, you have this like basically Photoshop level ability to just say, "Hey, take this thumbnail." Like we could take our two uh feeds right now, you know, take a snapshot of you, a sna..."
Why the future depends on a positive vision for AI
"29, 31, uh I'll take that extra buffer honestly where we can get it. My thinking is just get, you know, get ready as as much and as fast as possible. And again, if we do have a little grace time to uh..."