🎙️ EP 19: AI That Can Think in Steps — Inside Anthropic’s New Tool - podcast episode cover

🎙️ EP 19: AI That Can Think in Steps — Inside Anthropic’s New Tool

May 30, 2025•13 min
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Episode description

Anthropic just gave us something wild — a tool that lets you see inside an AI’s brain. You can actually trace how a model makes decisions, step by step. It’s called circuit tracing. This might be the beginning of editable reasoning in LLMs.

We’ll talk about:

  • Anthropic’s new circuit tracing tool and how it works
  • Why it matters for AI safety and transparency
  • DeepSeek’s quiet new model that just beat Claude 3.7 in coding
  • Google’s AI confusion — still doesn’t know what year it is
  • AI browser from Opera, Odyssey’s interactive video demos, and Grammarly’s $1B raise
  • Plus: NASA’s GAIA AI model that can predict hurricanes using 25 years of satellite data

Keywords:

Anthropic, circuit tracing, attribution graphs, DeepSeek R1-0528, Claude 3.7, Google AI fail, Gemini, GAIA AI, AI interpretability, AI reasoning, foundation models, AI transparency, interactive video AI, Grammarly funding, AI browser, OpenAI vs creators, AI Napster moment

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Transcript

OK, so imagine you could suddenly just like look inside an AI's brain, you know, really trace how it's thinking step by step. Or maybe you caught that news about AI predicting hurricanes like super accurately. Or there's another one that somehow can't even tell you what year it is. Yeah, that contrast is pretty, pretty stark, isn't it? Between the really groundbreaking stuff and well. Kind of baffling. Totally. And honestly, that pretty much captures what we're going to

dig into today. Yeah. Welcome to your deep dives. We've got the whole stack of sources. You shared some research papers, news bits, notes on new tools popping up. And it's all about the latest, most interesting things happening in AI. It's a really great snapshot, actually. It shows where the field is making these huge leaps and maybe also where it's still kind of finding its feet.

Yeah, exactly. So our mission here is just to unpack all of this with you, pull out the most important bits, the surprising stuff, maybe some real aha moments, and sort of give you the shortcut to understanding what's actually going on in this super fast -moving world. This is your custom deep dive into your material. Think of us as guides, maybe, helping you navigate the info

you brought to the table. Love that. Yeah. And right at the heart of these sources, there's this one piece that feels like, you know, the main event. It's about anthropic and what they've just, well, they've open sourced something pretty big. A tool that people are describing as giving us X -ray vision into that AI black box everyone talks about. Which is huge. Yeah. Because for years, everyone's kind of said that box is basically sealed shut. So seeing a real move towards cracking

it open. That's a big deal. It really is. We're definitely going to get into that. But your sources cover a bunch of other stuff too, right? It's not just the super technical breakthroughs. We've also got some of the more, let's say, quirky applications and just the general industry buzz you picked up on. Yeah. And what's fascinating, I think, is how these seemingly different pieces actually connect. They're not totally random.

They kind of show these underlying trends, maybe some tensions, and really paint a picture of where AI is heading right now. Right. It's like different sides of the same, I don't know. rapidly changing crystal or something. Okay, let's start with that big one then, the anthropic noose. The source talks about this new tool they've open sourced and they call the main technique circuit tracing. Yes, circuit tracing. And they're using something they call attribution graphs

to do it. This is basically their deep interpretability work, understanding how the model works. But now it's out there for others to use. Attribution graphs. Okay, so what does that actually show you? What are you looking at when you use it? Well, they're designed to show you the internal reasoning steps, right, that a language model

takes. When you give it a prompt and it spits out an answer, these graphs visualize the path the information took, which bits of the model lit up, and how they actually contributed to that specific response. Okay. Wow. So it's not just seeing, like, input goes in, answer comes out. You're literally watching the AI sort of

thing. think its way through in a very structured way yeah a graph based representation you can take a specific bit of the output and trace it right back through the model's layers you see the sequence of calculations and connections that led right to it and the source mentioned you can even like mess with it, edit things in the graph to see what happens. Precisely. Yeah,

that's the experimental part. You can spot a specific internal feature or like a pathway the model used, and then you can tweak it or even switch it off and see the direct cause and effect on the final answer. It lets you investigate really deeply. And this isn't just for Anthropic's own models, is it? The source said it works with some big open models too. Yeah, that's right. They specifically mentioned support for models

like Gemma and Llama. And importantly, they've put out demo notebooks and even some graphs they haven't fully figured out themselves yet, kind of inviting the whole research community to jump in and explore. See, this is where it gets... I think really significant because for years, the biggest knock against advanced AI, especially these huge language models, has been that black

box issue. We train them. They do amazing things, but we don't really get why they make certain choices or how they get to their conclusions. Exactly. And this release feels like a major step towards cracking that open. It's a very different vibe compared to labs that tend to keep these kinds of internal tools super secret. you know, proprietary. Anthropix seems to be making a statement here like transparency is key, which is probably also a competitive thing,

too. It's a huge signal. And the source toss out this really interesting idea. What if? down the road, we could actually edit the model's reasoning the same way we edit prompts now. That does raise a big question. If you can clearly trace, say, a flawed line of reasoning or see a really good one, could you potentially go right into the model's internal workings and correct or reinforce those patterns? This tool feels like a first step towards maybe having that kind

of capability someday. Yeah, that's definitely something to think about. Okay, so shifting gears a bit. From seeing inside the AI mind to predicting hurricanes. Your sources also brought up NASA's GAIA model. Ah, yes, GAIA. This is a fantastic example of these big foundation models. The really flexible, powerful ones moving completely beyond just language and text. GAIA stands for Geospatial Artificial Intelligence for Atmospheres. Right, the atmosphere. So it's like an AI weather model.

different somehow. Much, much more than just a standard weather model, really. It's a generative AI model built just for our planet's atmosphere. It was trained on something like 25 years of Earth data. It can do things like predict hurricanes. Yeah. But also spot wildfires, estimate rainfall, potentially all in real time. 25 years of data. Yeah. Wow. That sounds like a massive project. What makes this different from, you know, the super complex weather models we already have?

A couple of key things based on the source. One is the detail and speed. It apparently has a four kilometer spatial resolution that's really fine grained and updates every 30 minutes, which is incredibly detailed for real time use over big areas. But it's also it's generative power. It can intelligently like patch up big holes in satellite data or reconstruct full high res weather maps, even if the input is noisy or incomplete.

Whoa, that's amazing for places where you might not have perfect sensor coverage or, you know, if data drops out. Exactly. And it's designed to be, you know, a foundation, something other labs and organizations can build on top of. It really shows these powerful AI methods aren't just for writing code or text anymore. They're starting to tackle really complex physical systems. So, like, could cities or maybe disaster relief

groups actually use something like this? The source suggested that within maybe the next couple of years, GAA -like models could realistically be powering real -time dashboards. You know, for critical infrastructure, disaster response, it seems to be moving pretty fast from research to potential real -world, maybe even life -saving uses. Wow. Okay. So we have this absolutely groundbreaking stuff, seeing inside AI predicting massive storms

with incredible detail, and then... Your sources also had that little snippet about Google's AI assistant apparently telling people the current year is 2024. Yes, that little detail was interesting, wasn't it? It definitely highlights the current state of things that even while we're making these massive leaps like GAIA, really basic factual slip ups can still. It is kind of humbling, right? Like any kid knows the year, but a cutting edge

AI occasionally gets it wrong. It certainly brings up that important point about reliability and, you know, how much we can really trust these tools for simple, checkable facts, especially when they might be baked into systems we depend on. The source even tied it back to some critics who worry about relying on AI for the kind of factual info we used to just get from the Web. Right. And speaking of Google. Your sources also mentioned those kind of weirdly realistic, sometimes

unsettling videos from VO3. People were sharing them showing impossible challenges or physics being broken. Yes, the sheer ability and realism in AI video generation is just advancing incredibly fast. Those examples really drive that home. And then there was Odyssey, which showed off something called an interactive video AI model. Right. They described it like stepping into a

playable movie. That's a different angle, again, taking AI video creation beyond just making a fixed clip towards potentially creating dynamic, responsive visuals that you can actually influence somehow. That's a whole other thing for like content creation or maybe training simulations or something. And then you have tools like Opera's new browser, Neon. They're calling it an AI browser that can act on your behalf. Yeah, that sounds

like more of an interface shift. An AI browser that can chat, sure, but also fill forms, maybe book trips. The source even suggested it could build symbol apps for you. The browser itself becomes, you know, an AI assistant layered on top of everything. So instead of just finding the flight info, you could potentially just tell it, hey, book me the cheapest flight next Tuesday. Yeah. And I might just do it. That seems to be the direction they're looking at. Yeah. Your

sources also caught some of that. broader industry pulse, like Grammarly, the AI writing helper, getting a billion dollars in funding. That's huge. A billion dollars. Yeah, that is serious cash flowing into AI productivity tools. And some other quick hits, Perplexity, having a tool to make spreadsheets from conversations, the Netflix co -founder joining Anthropix board.

It all just shows the whole ecosystem is buzzing, you know, evolving really fast, technically, commercially, even in terms of who's leading things. Oh, and there were mentions of layoffs at business. insider, too, maybe hinting at wider economic stuff or how AI might start shaking up certain jobs. Yeah, there's definitely a lot going on on all these different fronts at the

same time. It's kind of dizzying. Yeah. So, OK, we've covered quite a bit here from trying to peek inside the AI's mind with Anthropic's new tool to predicting massive weather events with NASA's GAIA model to. The surprising little glitch of a major AI forgetting what year it is and all these new ways AI is popping up in video and even how we browse the web. Yeah. And if we try to like connect the dots here, see the

bigger picture. What this collection of news really signals is the incredible, almost kind of jarring speed of AI evolution right now. You see this fundamental push for transparency, for understanding with Anthropic. But that's happening at the same time as we're building these incredibly powerful foundation models for really complex physical systems like the atmosphere with GAIA. And then you have that really stark contrast, right, between that super cutting edge stuff,

the fact that, you know. Some basic reliability things like an AI getting the year wrong are still cropping up. Exactly. It shows the tech is both incredibly advanced and still kind of immature. Or maybe just unpredictable in some ways. It also clearly demonstrates how fast AI's application space is expanding. I mean, it's not just about generating text or code anymore, not by a long shot. It's moving firmly into physical systems like GAIA and to creative media like

VO and Odyssey. And it's fundamentally changing how we interact with information, like with these new AI browsers. OK, so what does all this mean for you listening right now? Why does knowing about circuit tracing or a hurricane model actually matter? Well, I think understanding these specific points gives you a much better feel for where AI is actually heading, you know, beyond just

the general hype you hear everywhere. Knowing about something like circuit tracing, for instance, it fundamentally changes that idea of the AI black box. Maybe it's becoming less opaque. And that's crucial if we want to build trust and make sure these things are safe. The GIA model shows that AI isn't just changing how we use computers. It's starting to potentially change our understanding and ability to deal with the physical world around us in pretty significant

ways. And seeing that mix the incredible breakthroughs right alongside the basic errors, that gives you a more realistic view of where things stand today, where it's powerful and where the limitations still are. Right. It helps you maybe anticipate how AI might show up next in your own life or your work or just out in the world. and what you can realistically expect from it, or maybe what you shouldn't expect from it just yet. Precisely,

yeah. It's about being informed, grounded, and what the actual research and the real -world applications are showing us. Yeah, that really is something to think about. Okay, so based on these sources you brought us, here's a final thought to kind of leave you with. We saw with Anthropix tool... that we can now start to see AI reasoning, right? And they even hinted at maybe being able to edit that reasoning directly

in the future. So what happens when you combine the ability to look exactly at why an AI made a certain decision with the potential power to directly go in and change its internal logic? What does that mean for AI safety, for how we control these systems, or maybe even for how we think about intelligence itself down the line? Yeah, definitely a lot to ponder as these capabilities keep developing so so quickly. Indeed. Thanks again for bringing your sources for this deep dive.

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