The AI Realist Podcast
AI without the hype: what it costs, who profits, and what the filings say.
The audio edition of The AI Realist, Julien Simon's newsletter on the AI industry. Each episode is one written piece, narrated by an AI voice: GPU and cloud economics, inference costs, open-weight models, chips and export rules, AI regulation, and the business models of the AI labs.
Listen on Spotify8 episodes
· 27 min
Kolibri Is Large Enough
American chips, Chinese teachers, about $3 million for the training run. What Germany's new open model adds is eligibility.
Read the written piece, with every source· 37 min
Eight Changes to Transformer Attention, and What Each Costs
The newest open models from Alibaba, Moonshot, DeepSeek and Z.AI no longer read every earlier token. Eight designs, what each costs, and what to test.
Read the written piece, with every source· 11 min
An Act of God, With Letterhead
Oracle reportedly called its power problem an act of God. Its annual report had already listed it.
Read the written piece, with every source· 28 min
Vent Mauvais
Verlaine’s ill wind carries the leaf where it will. States bought Mistral without a tender; where free choice can be measured, it goes elsewhere.
Read the written piece, with every source· 12 min
At Least 45 Days
Almost every model on Bedrock gets six months' notice before it can be pulled. The one Washington just accused gets 45 days, and no stated reason.
Read the written piece, with every source· 26 min
Selective Availability
Three agencies advised American AI providers to degrade answers for accounts they suspect of malicious distillation, subtly enough to “avoid triggering obvious alerts”.
Read the written piece, with every source· 24 min
The Cache Is the Price
Routing a job to a cheaper model looks like free money. Whether it is depends on how the frontier bills the handover.
Read the written piece, with every source· 22 min
Event Horizon
Nobody could pay to keep Hugging Face neutral. Nvidia is paying to own it.
Read the written piece, with every source