Nathan Lambert
@natolambert.bsky.social
A LLN - large language Nathan - (RL, RLHF, society, robotics), athlete, yogi, chef
Writes http://interconnects.ai
At Ai2 via HuggingFace, Berkeley, and normal places
Writes http://interconnects.ai
At Ai2 via HuggingFace, Berkeley, and normal places
I appreciate the shoutout from @simonwillison.net
I'm building up a much richer (and direct) understanding of Chinese AI labs. Excited to share more here soon :)
I'm building up a much richer (and direct) understanding of Chinese AI labs. Excited to share more here soon :)
November 7, 2025 at 6:13 PM
I appreciate the shoutout from @simonwillison.net
I'm building up a much richer (and direct) understanding of Chinese AI labs. Excited to share more here soon :)
I'm building up a much richer (and direct) understanding of Chinese AI labs. Excited to share more here soon :)
Thoughts on Kimi K2 Thinking
Congrats to the Moonshot AI team on the awesome open release. For close followers of Chinese AI models, this isn't shocking, but more inflection points are coming. Pressure is building on US labs with more expensive models.
www.interconnects.ai/p/kimi-k2-th...
Congrats to the Moonshot AI team on the awesome open release. For close followers of Chinese AI models, this isn't shocking, but more inflection points are coming. Pressure is building on US labs with more expensive models.
www.interconnects.ai/p/kimi-k2-th...
November 6, 2025 at 6:53 PM
Thoughts on Kimi K2 Thinking
Congrats to the Moonshot AI team on the awesome open release. For close followers of Chinese AI models, this isn't shocking, but more inflection points are coming. Pressure is building on US labs with more expensive models.
www.interconnects.ai/p/kimi-k2-th...
Congrats to the Moonshot AI team on the awesome open release. For close followers of Chinese AI models, this isn't shocking, but more inflection points are coming. Pressure is building on US labs with more expensive models.
www.interconnects.ai/p/kimi-k2-th...
The Great Lock In
November 6, 2025 at 1:07 AM
The Great Lock In
We're starting to hire for our 2026 Olmo interns! Looking for excellent students to do research to help build our best models (primarily enrolled in Ph.D. with experience or interest in any area of the language modeling pipeline).
job-boards.greenhouse.io/thealleninst...
job-boards.greenhouse.io/thealleninst...
November 5, 2025 at 11:27 PM
We're starting to hire for our 2026 Olmo interns! Looking for excellent students to do research to help build our best models (primarily enrolled in Ph.D. with experience or interest in any area of the language modeling pipeline).
job-boards.greenhouse.io/thealleninst...
job-boards.greenhouse.io/thealleninst...
The first research on the fundamentals of character training -- i.e. applying modern post training techniques to ingrain specific character traits into models.
All models, datasets, code etc released.
Really excited about this project! Sharan, the lead student author, was a joy to work with.
All models, datasets, code etc released.
Really excited about this project! Sharan, the lead student author, was a joy to work with.
November 4, 2025 at 4:51 PM
The first research on the fundamentals of character training -- i.e. applying modern post training techniques to ingrain specific character traits into models.
All models, datasets, code etc released.
Really excited about this project! Sharan, the lead student author, was a joy to work with.
All models, datasets, code etc released.
Really excited about this project! Sharan, the lead student author, was a joy to work with.
Interesting chart where service based sectors are using AI more (even though, e.g. the US has way less trust or optimism in AI than a place like China) could be a resounding advantage in a willingness to fund the endeavor as it gets even more expensive in the next couple years.
November 4, 2025 at 2:54 AM
Interesting chart where service based sectors are using AI more (even though, e.g. the US has way less trust or optimism in AI than a place like China) could be a resounding advantage in a willingness to fund the endeavor as it gets even more expensive in the next couple years.
refreshing wrap to the weekend
November 3, 2025 at 2:07 AM
refreshing wrap to the weekend
I'm a total sucker for nice RL training scaling plots.
They're very neglected vis-a-vis the much easier inference-time scaling plots.
They're very neglected vis-a-vis the much easier inference-time scaling plots.
October 29, 2025 at 5:30 PM
I'm a total sucker for nice RL training scaling plots.
They're very neglected vis-a-vis the much easier inference-time scaling plots.
They're very neglected vis-a-vis the much easier inference-time scaling plots.
Cursor announced some new coding models. I'd put money on this being a finetune of one of the large, Chinese MoE models.
Excited to see more companies able to train models that suit their needs. Bodes very well for the ecosystem that specific data is stronger than a bigger, general model.
Excited to see more companies able to train models that suit their needs. Bodes very well for the ecosystem that specific data is stronger than a bigger, general model.
October 29, 2025 at 5:22 PM
Cursor announced some new coding models. I'd put money on this being a finetune of one of the large, Chinese MoE models.
Excited to see more companies able to train models that suit their needs. Bodes very well for the ecosystem that specific data is stronger than a bigger, general model.
Excited to see more companies able to train models that suit their needs. Bodes very well for the ecosystem that specific data is stronger than a bigger, general model.
Most people working in the cutting edge of AI seem to have no long-term plan for their unsustainable work habits.
October 25, 2025 at 5:54 PM
Most people working in the cutting edge of AI seem to have no long-term plan for their unsustainable work habits.
Life update, she said yes. 🤩👩❤️👨🐕🦺
October 20, 2025 at 2:05 PM
Life update, she said yes. 🤩👩❤️👨🐕🦺
Another roundup of the latest models.
Fun parts:
1. Methods for accurately monitoring HF 🤗downloads
2. GPT-OSS is mostly fixed and loved now
3. The perils of hybrid reasoning models
4. The continued degradation of open datasets
& usual surprises from China
Read here: buff.ly/XVmSkPP
Fun parts:
1. Methods for accurately monitoring HF 🤗downloads
2. GPT-OSS is mostly fixed and loved now
3. The perils of hybrid reasoning models
4. The continued degradation of open datasets
& usual surprises from China
Read here: buff.ly/XVmSkPP
October 18, 2025 at 3:33 PM
Another roundup of the latest models.
Fun parts:
1. Methods for accurately monitoring HF 🤗downloads
2. GPT-OSS is mostly fixed and loved now
3. The perils of hybrid reasoning models
4. The continued degradation of open datasets
& usual surprises from China
Read here: buff.ly/XVmSkPP
Fun parts:
1. Methods for accurately monitoring HF 🤗downloads
2. GPT-OSS is mostly fixed and loved now
3. The perils of hybrid reasoning models
4. The continued degradation of open datasets
& usual surprises from China
Read here: buff.ly/XVmSkPP
New toy!
Going to give local models another go. Excited for some tinkering.
Going to give local models another go. Excited for some tinkering.
October 17, 2025 at 8:59 PM
New toy!
Going to give local models another go. Excited for some tinkering.
Going to give local models another go. Excited for some tinkering.
The State of Open Models (Video)
This talk covers everything that’s happened this year in the open model landscape — DeepSeek kickstarting the Chinese open model norms, Llama’s fade, Qwen’s dominance, GPT-OSS — and what comes next.
YouTube: buff.ly/23wC7GN
This talk covers everything that’s happened this year in the open model landscape — DeepSeek kickstarting the Chinese open model norms, Llama’s fade, Qwen’s dominance, GPT-OSS — and what comes next.
YouTube: buff.ly/23wC7GN
October 16, 2025 at 2:13 PM
The State of Open Models (Video)
This talk covers everything that’s happened this year in the open model landscape — DeepSeek kickstarting the Chinese open model norms, Llama’s fade, Qwen’s dominance, GPT-OSS — and what comes next.
YouTube: buff.ly/23wC7GN
This talk covers everything that’s happened this year in the open model landscape — DeepSeek kickstarting the Chinese open model norms, Llama’s fade, Qwen’s dominance, GPT-OSS — and what comes next.
YouTube: buff.ly/23wC7GN
The first fantastic paper on scaling RL with LLMs just dropped. I strongly recommend taking a look and will be sharing more thoughts on the blog soon.
The Art of Scaling Reinforcement Learning Compute for LLMs
Khatri & Madaan et al.
buff.ly/olKwF3X
The Art of Scaling Reinforcement Learning Compute for LLMs
Khatri & Madaan et al.
buff.ly/olKwF3X
October 16, 2025 at 1:59 PM
The first fantastic paper on scaling RL with LLMs just dropped. I strongly recommend taking a look and will be sharing more thoughts on the blog soon.
The Art of Scaling Reinforcement Learning Compute for LLMs
Khatri & Madaan et al.
buff.ly/olKwF3X
The Art of Scaling Reinforcement Learning Compute for LLMs
Khatri & Madaan et al.
buff.ly/olKwF3X
I got the AI writing homies together to launch SAIL (readsail on socials): A team bundle to get access to the best content in AI all in one subscription. Otherwise, nothing in my mission is changing. Get the best content written to inform the public and shape the trajectory of AI.
readsail.com
readsail.com
October 15, 2025 at 6:15 PM
I got the AI writing homies together to launch SAIL (readsail on socials): A team bundle to get access to the best content in AI all in one subscription. Otherwise, nothing in my mission is changing. Get the best content written to inform the public and shape the trajectory of AI.
readsail.com
readsail.com
Surprised about openai enabling erotica in their models? They've stated that they want to safely enable this for adult users in their model spec for year(s), so it shouldn't be.
Screenshot from May 2024 Model Spec.
More people should have model specs.
Screenshot from May 2024 Model Spec.
More people should have model specs.
October 15, 2025 at 12:18 AM
Surprised about openai enabling erotica in their models? They've stated that they want to safely enable this for adult users in their model spec for year(s), so it shouldn't be.
Screenshot from May 2024 Model Spec.
More people should have model specs.
Screenshot from May 2024 Model Spec.
More people should have model specs.
For folks at COLM, my talk is in 524C @ 12:00PM to share the various things that go into building a reasoning model from scratch. See you soon!
Will not be recorded and slides will only be released when we can get models out that we're happy with.
Will not be recorded and slides will only be released when we can get models out that we're happy with.
October 10, 2025 at 1:57 PM
For folks at COLM, my talk is in 524C @ 12:00PM to share the various things that go into building a reasoning model from scratch. See you soon!
Will not be recorded and slides will only be released when we can get models out that we're happy with.
Will not be recorded and slides will only be released when we can get models out that we're happy with.
Talk from Wenting Zhao of Qwen on their plans during COLM. Seems like 1 word is the plan still: scaling training up! Let’s go.
October 9, 2025 at 7:03 PM
Talk from Wenting Zhao of Qwen on their plans during COLM. Seems like 1 word is the plan still: scaling training up! Let’s go.
Open Models Talk and COLM 2025 is happening at 524C (end of the conference center) at 2pm.
October 9, 2025 at 4:37 PM
Open Models Talk and COLM 2025 is happening at 524C (end of the conference center) at 2pm.
Perfect timing for COLM2025 here in Montreal.
October 7, 2025 at 3:23 PM
Perfect timing for COLM2025 here in Montreal.
The Curve is a new style of mini AI conference to debate AI progress.
Here I reflect on it and explain why the argument that AI will fully replace human research engineers, and then scientists, is far fetched in the years of compute scarcity.
Here I reflect on it and explain why the argument that AI will fully replace human research engineers, and then scientists, is far fetched in the years of compute scarcity.
October 7, 2025 at 1:34 PM
The Curve is a new style of mini AI conference to debate AI progress.
Here I reflect on it and explain why the argument that AI will fully replace human research engineers, and then scientists, is far fetched in the years of compute scarcity.
Here I reflect on it and explain why the argument that AI will fully replace human research engineers, and then scientists, is far fetched in the years of compute scarcity.
I gave a talk today at The Curve on the state of open models.
Here are the slides, recording soon.
Topics include: Chinese ecosystem, reflections on DeepSeek, the demise of Llama, who will fill the U.S. market, what local models do, ATOM project & ai2, and more topics
buff.ly/8BiC67C
Here are the slides, recording soon.
Topics include: Chinese ecosystem, reflections on DeepSeek, the demise of Llama, who will fill the U.S. market, what local models do, ATOM project & ai2, and more topics
buff.ly/8BiC67C
October 5, 2025 at 9:06 PM
I gave a talk today at The Curve on the state of open models.
Here are the slides, recording soon.
Topics include: Chinese ecosystem, reflections on DeepSeek, the demise of Llama, who will fill the U.S. market, what local models do, ATOM project & ai2, and more topics
buff.ly/8BiC67C
Here are the slides, recording soon.
Topics include: Chinese ecosystem, reflections on DeepSeek, the demise of Llama, who will fill the U.S. market, what local models do, ATOM project & ai2, and more topics
buff.ly/8BiC67C