📜 Ilya’s Memo Shakes OpenAI Again

Good morning, AI enthusiast. New court filings from Ilya Sutskever’s 10-hour deposition reveal shocking details, including accusations of deceit, chaos inside OpenAI, and even a plan to merge with Anthropic during the 2023 board crisis.

In today’s AI newsletter:

• Ilya’s Memo Shakes OpenAI Again

• AI Models Now Analyze Language Like Human Experts

• Ex-xAI researcher aims to raise $1B for human-first AI lab

• How to turn simple screenshots into fully animated product demos

• AI tools & more

AI GOVERNANCE

📜 Ilya’s Memo Shakes OpenAI Again

In the Musk v. OpenAI lawsuit, co-founder Ilya Sutskever sat for 10 hours of deposition and filed a 52-page memo accusing Sam Altman of a “persistent pattern of lying and manipulation.” The board, Ilya reveals, even considered merging with Anthropic and installing Dario Amodei as CEO, a move that would’ve rewritten AI history.

• Ilya says Altman repeatedly misled the board, sowed chaos, and withheld key information

• The board allegedly couldn’t trust Altman on governance, triggering his brief ousting in 2023

• The board seriously discussed merging with Anthropic and replacing Altman with Amodei

• A new “Brockman memo” has surfaced, now under court order for production

This wasn’t about “AI safety” or philosophical divides, it was a collapse of governance and trust at the highest level of the world’s most powerful AI company. The next wave of discovery could permanently reshape how we understand OpenAI’s past, and how the world governs AGI’s future.

AI RESEARCH

🧠 AI Models Now Analyze Language Like Human Experts

A new Berkeley-led study has found that large language models (LLMs) can now analyze and reason about language as deeply as human linguists, a milestone that challenges long-held beliefs about what makes human cognition unique.

• Researchers tested multiple LLMs on linguistic reasoning tasks, including syntax trees, ambiguity resolution, and phonological analysis.

• OpenAI’s o1 model performed on par with graduate-level linguists, even diagramming recursive sentence structures and identifying subtle grammatical relationships.

• In tests with invented mini-languages, o1 inferred phonological rules that were never part of its training data, suggesting true metalinguistic reasoning, not memorization.

• Experts like Yale’s Tom McCoy and CMU’s David Mortensen called the findings “attention-getting,” marking a turning point in how AI understands language.

For decades, linguists argued that language analysis, not just usage, was uniquely human. But these results suggest that AI systems are developing metalinguistic abilities, enabling them to think about language rather than merely predict it. The finding raises profound questions: if language is what makes us human, what happens when machines master it too?

AI NEWS

🤝 Ex-xAI researcher aims to raise $1B for human-first AI lab

Former xAI researcher Eric Zelikman has founded a new startup, Humans&, alongside Georges Harik (Google’s 7th employee and co-creator of AdWords), to create AI systems designed for collaboration, empathy, and coordination with people.

• The team includes researchers from Meta, Anthropic, OpenAI, and DeepMind

• The company is targeting a $5B valuation before even launching its first product

• Humans& aims to train models that remember and adapt to individual preferences

• Their focus: helping humans achieve goals, not automating them away

As most AI labs race to replace human labor, Humans& is taking a different path, building AI that amplifies human strengths. If successful, it could redefine what “alignment” means in the age of intelligent collaboration.

HOW TO AI

💻 How to turn simple screenshots into fully animated product demos

In this tutorial, you will learn how to use Bazaar to create polished demo videos by automatically turning simple screenshots into animations, editing them with text prompts, and building complete product walkthroughs in minutes.

🧰 Who is This For

• Product designers who want to turn mockups into demos

• Founders launching a new app or website

• Marketers creating quick tutorials or feature showcases

• Anyone who wants to turn static screenshots into polished motion videos

STEP 1: Access the Tool

Go to Bazaar and log in. Once you’re in, click “New” from the left sidebar to start a blank project.

You’ll see two main panels, Chat on the left and Video Player on the right.
This is where you’ll describe what kind of video you want Bazaar to make..

STEP 2: Upload Your Image

In the Chat panel, click the image icon at the bottom left to upload your app screenshot or webpage. Once the image appears in chat, you’re ready to write your video description.

STEP 3: Describe Your Video Prompt

In the message box that says “Describe what you want to create,” write a clear prompt like:

“Make a short video showing this AI newsletter page. Highlight the title, scroll through the posts, and end with a line saying ‘Join the community today.’”

Then hit the Send (paper plane) button on the right.

Bazaar will automatically generate a cinematic animation that scrolls, zooms, and highlights sections based on your text prompt.

STEP 4: Preview and Download

Once the video appears on the right in the Video Player, click the Play button to preview the full animation.

If you like the result, click Download in the top-right corner to save your video.
You can also make edits just by typing new instructions in the Chat, like “Make it slower” or “Add text at the end,” and Bazaar will rebuild the video instantly.

Google says it removed its AI model Gemma from AI Studio; in a letter to Google, Senator Blackburn said it fabricated sexual misconduct allegations against her.

In an interview, Satya Nadella says Microsoft faces a power shortage, but not a compute one, which could leave “chips sitting in inventory that I can't plug in”.

Microsoft AI chief Mustafa Suleyman says only biological beings can be conscious and it “would be absurd to pursue research” about AI consciousness.

Pony AI plans to raise $863M in its Hong Kong IPO on November 6 by selling 48.3M shares at ~$17.88 each, below its October 31 Nasdaq close at $18.68.

⚙️ Composer: Cursor’s new fast AI coding model

🎨 Creative OS: Canva’s new AI-powered visual suite

🎥 LTX-2 Fast: Generate 20s of smooth, continuous video

🧠 Pomelli: Google’s tool for creating on-brand content with AI

THAT’S IT FOR TODAY

Thanks for making it to the end! I put my heart into every email I send, I hope you are enjoying it. Let me know your thoughts so I can make the next one even better!

See you tomorrow :)

- Dr. Alvaro Cintas