State of AI in 2026: LLMs, Coding, Scaling Laws, China, Agents, GPUs, AGI | Lex Fridman Podcast #490

Description

Nathan Lambert and Sebastian Raschka are machine learning researchers, engineers, and educators. Nathan is the post-training lead at the Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) and the author of The RLHF Book. Sebastian Raschka is the author of Build a Large Language Model (From Scratch) and Build a Reasoning Model (From Scratch). Thank you for listening ❤ Check out our sponsors: https://lexfridman.com/sponsors/ep490-sb See below for timestamps, transcript, and to give feedback, submit questions, contact Lex, etc. *Transcript:* https://lexfridman.com/ai-sota-2026-transcript *Correction:* Here's an updated image listing a collection of recent open & closed AI models with some improvements & fixes: https://lexfridman.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/ai_models_2025.png *CONTACT LEX:* *Feedback* - give feedback to Lex: https://lexfridman.com/survey *AMA* - submit questions, videos or call-in: https://lexfridman.com/ama *Hiring* - join our team: https://lexfridman.com/hiring *Other* - other ways to get in touch: https://lexfridman.com/contact *EPISODE LINKS:* Nathan's X: https://x.com/natolambert Nathan's Blog: https://interconnects.ai Nathan's Website: https://natolambert.com Nathan's YouTube: https://youtube.com/@natolambert Nathan's GitHub: https://github.com/natolambert Nathan's Book: https://rlhfbook.com Sebastian's X: https://x.com/rasbt Sebastian's Blog: https://magazine.sebastianraschka.com Sebastian's Website: https://sebastianraschka.com Sebastian's YouTube: https://youtube.com/@SebastianRaschka Sebastian's GitHub: https://github.com/rasbt Sebastian's Books: Build a Large Language Model (From Scratch): https://manning.com/books/build-a-large-language-model-from-scratch Build a Reasoning Model (From Scratch): https://manning.com/books/build-a-reasoning-model-from-scratch *SPONSORS:* To support this podcast, check out our sponsors & get discounts: *Box:* Intelligent content management platform. Go to https://lexfridman.com/s/box-ep490-sb *Quo:* Phone system (calls, texts, contacts) for businesses. Go to http