Archive - Understanding AI

7 charts that show why you should advertise on Understanding AI

The newsletter will remain ad-free for paying readers.

Jun 29 • Timothy B. Lee

The US now has a de facto model licensing system

OpenAI’s latest model, GPT-5.6, is waiting for government approval.

Jun 29 • Timothy B. Lee

Why AI hasn’t replaced software engineers, and won’t

Coding agents as normal technology

Published on AI as Normal Technology • Jun 16

The MAGA power struggle that could decide the fate of Anthropic

It may not be easy for Anthropic to escape the Trump export ban.

Jun 15 • Timothy B. Lee

Anthropic’s Fable is the most locked-down public model we’ve ever seen

How Anthropic decides which questions are too dangerous for Claude to answer.

Jun 11 • Kai Williams

DC-area happy hour on June 23!

Meet the Understanding AI team — and some friends of the newsletter.

Jun 11 • Timothy B. Lee and Kai Williams

Anthropic has caught up to OpenAI in image understanding

But neither one is all that good.

Jun 10 • Timothy B. Lee

We're building a different kind of AI newsroom

Your subscription dollars now directly support Kai Williams.

Jun 1 • Timothy B. Lee

May 2026

OpenAI’s math breakthrough played to AI’s strengths

I tried to explain OpenAI’s solution more clearly than OpenAI did.

May 28 • Kai Williams

Why it might not make sense for you to own a self-driving car

Tensor let me sit in their driverless car. It might go on sale in the US next year.

May 14 • Timothy B. Lee

A big lesson of my China visit: compute shortages are holding back Chinese AI

One estimate suggests that OpenAI has about as much compute as the entire Chinese AI industry.

May 12 • Kai Williams

I don’t think we are close to “AI scientists”

Today's AI agents are not designed to extract deep insights from new observations.

May 6 • Timothy B. Lee

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