China Gets it, the US Doesn't.

TLDR;

Welcome back! This week, we discuss several things, but put a larger focus on a more geopolitical, strategic side of AI: a country-level comparison in hardware between the US and China, and new threats to NVIDIA’s dominance.

We also discuss another astronomical valuation potentially scored by an AI company, a very cool AI-generated slide deck feature by Google, and other new cool products.

Enjoy!

CHATGPT

OpenAI Launches ‘Study’ Mode

OpenAI's ChatGPT recently introduced "Study and Learn," a new mode that transforms AI interactions into personalized tutoring sessions.

Rather than the standard conversational style, this mode activates specialized instructions crafted with educators and pedagogy experts, aiming to foster critical thinking and deeper learning.

Specifically, the model shifts from focusing on validation or agreement to actively identifying gaps in the user's knowledge.

Under this mode, ChatGPT employs interactive techniques like Socratic questioning, structured hints, and self-reflection prompts.

Therefore, instead of merely giving answers, it prompts users to reason and arrive at solutions independently. Lessons are organized clearly into manageable sections, facilitating understanding and reducing overwhelm.

The mode also includes knowledge checks, quizzes, and open-ended questions with personalized feedback, enabling users to retain and apply their knowledge more effectively. Users can easily toggle this feature on or off, providing flexibility to match evolving learning goals.

TheWhiteBox’s takeaway:

The most important takeaway for me is that the "Study and Learn" mode significantly addresses a critical challenge facing AI systems: sycophancy, or the tendency to agree unquestioningly with users.

AI models typically optimize for engagement, often sacrificing truthfulness or depth to ensure user satisfaction and prolonged interaction. The new mode explicitly tackles this by encouraging thoughtful skepticism and critical thinking, empowering users to learn rather than just feel validated.

Moreover, this development is the first real example of one of AI’s biggest use cases: AI tutoring.

With teacher-to-student ratios increasingly strained worldwide, AI tutors offer a scalable, personalized educational solution.

By augmenting human educators, AI tutors can reduce teaching burdens, allowing them to prioritize emotional intelligence, social skills, and individual student support.

As we have explained several times in this newsletter, we desperately need a shift in education away from knowledge-based training: In a future where knowledge is less important and what matters is what you do about that knowledge, we are still stuck in the former; teaching kids to know a lot and do nothing about it, making them as useful as a model sitting in your backpocket.

This is not AI’s fault; it’s us doing our future generations dirty.

OPEN-SOURCE

Horizon Alpha, OpenAI’s Open Model?

OpenRouter has announced a new model you can try for yourself using things like Goose (which I showed you how to install here), which many believe is OpenAI’s upcoming open-weights model.

The alpha model, called Horizon Alpha, seems pretty good in many tasks (especially in areas like emotional intelligence, where it clinches first spot), yet has ‘small model smell’, meaning it’s not good enough as the frontier models, instead optimizing for performance per size.

But is it…

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