Show Notes
Is Google back?
They claim that they are back. Gemini 4 Argon is rolling out, with competitive frontier-level benchmarks, at 2 dollars/10 dollars.
What we don’t have is access to the model, because Google Fails Marketing Forever. So it is far too early to say what we have here. When I know more, so will you.
OpenAI was forced to pull what would have been GPT-6.1 Astra due to alignment failures. They did offer us GPT-6.1 Sol, which is pitched as approaching Astra quality at the much lower price of 2 dollars/10 dollars, the same as Gemini 4 Argon.
The rest of OpenAI's big Dev Day announcements were Ultrafast mode and Dots, your always-on AI agent based on Astra, which comes with your Pro subscription. I’m trying it out and will report back over time if I find it useful.
The new hotness remains Claude Opus 5.5. This model rocks. It has made me considerably more productive and made my day more pleasant. It should raise your ambitions. There are some particular reasons to call upon Fable 5.1 or Astra, and sometimes a cheaper model will do, but pending Argon I consider Opus 5.5 [...] --- Outline: (03:04) Language Models Offer Mundane Utility (06:12) Huh, Upgrades (07:38) Better Call Sol (11:39) Gotta Go Ultrafast (13:13) On Your Marks (16:42) Choose Your Fighter (19:16) Get My Agent On The Line (22:34) The Warner Sister (26:33) Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon (30:58) Fun With Media Generation (31:53) Cyber Lack of Security (33:24) A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer (33:59) They Took Our Jobs (41:04) Levels of Friction (43:50) Get Involved (45:54) Introducing (47:54) In Other AI News (48:57) Show Me the Money (50:43) Quickly, There's No Time (52:38) Pick Up the Phone (53:36) Quest for Sane Regulations (53:58) Chip City (54:07) The Open Model Frontier Is Largely Massive Fraudulent Distillation Attacks (56:23) The Week in Audio (57:38) People Just Say Things (59:17) Rhetorical Innovation (01:03:55) Greetings From the Department of War (01:06:55) The Department of Autonomous Warfare (01:08:16) Aligning a Smarter Than Human Intelligence is Difficult (01:11:03) Cooperative Alignment (01:16:42) I'm Upping My p(doom), the Future Goes Foom (01:24:16) No, You Make a Good Point, You're Not That Persuasive (01:25:27) Muddling Through (01:27:34) The Lighter Side ---
First published:
October 1st, 2026
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/S2EAn9v4BwRdptsom/ai-188-gemini-dot-argon
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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
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