Jeff Dean

rat brain ai amazon neuron derived video model a petri dish with a domed lid

AI Models Built From Rat Brains Just Got Closer to Reality

From 23 September 2026, selected AWS customers can use a text-to-video model whose optimisations were derived from living rat and human neurons grown on Swiss-made electrode arrays. The Biological Computing Co. claims 5x faster generation and 80% lower inference cost from a software layer that adds under 0.1% to the base model — but will not name the open-source system it is measured against. This article covers how the laboratory loop works, why the company started with video rather than language, the $50m-plus funding, the contrast with Cortical Labs’ wetware-as-a-service, and the scaling doubt Amazon’s own director raised on the record.

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barret zoph google deepmind thinking machines a solid boomerang

Barret Zoph, the Thinking Machines Co-Founder Ousted Before Joining OpenAI, Is Now at Google

Barret Zoph announced on 26 August 2026 that he is joining Google DeepMind as vice president of research, working on reinforcement learning and post-training for Gemini. It closes a twenty-two month sequence that took him from OpenAI to co-founding Thinking Machines Lab with Mira Murati, to a disputed firing on 14 January 2026, to five months leading enterprise business back at OpenAI. This breakdown covers what the new role is and is not, both accounts of the Thinking Machines termination, his 2016-2022 Google Brain record, the 2026 departures that emptied the seat he is filling, where Thinking Machines stands now, and what any organisation buying AI should take from it.

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