The GenAI Collective Community Newsletter
Week of February 17th, 2025
Upcoming Events
🌁 SF Bay Area
Tue, Feb 18th: 🧠 GenAI Collective 🧠 DeepSeek for Founders 🐳
Thu, Mar 6th: 🧠 Beta University x GenAI Collective 🧠 Shaping the Future of AI Infrastructure
Thu, Mar 13th: 🧠 GenAI Collective 🧠 Demo Night Marin!
Wed, Mar 26th: SF Demo Night 🚀
🗓️ Hungry for even more AI events? Check out SF IRL, MLOps SF, or Cerebral Valley’s spreadsheet!
Our friends at the Silicon Valley Generative AI community (a member organization of the GenAI Collective) host biweekly meetings where they read and discuss the most disruptive, new AI/ML research papers! Join us for the next event on February 24th!
🗽New York
Thursday, Feb 20th: 🧠 GenAI Collective NYC 🧠 February Research Roundtable
Friday, Feb 21st: GenAI Collective × Cerebral Valley × swyx Presents: AI Engineers Happy Hour
Thu, Feb 27th: AI/ML makers unplugged with Google Cloud
As part of the event, we’re inviting our community members to share their work in a short, 15-minute lighting talk. If interested, feel free to fill out this form for a chance to get involved!
The New York team is also hiring! We are seeking passionate enthusiasts to join us supporting event planning, sales and sponsorships, and marketing.
🌆 Chicago, IL
Tue, Feb 18th: 🌇 GenAI Collective Chicago: How AI is Innovating the Physical World
Sat, Mar 8th: ☕ GenAI Collective International Women's Day Brunch 🥞
☔ Seattle
🔥 Austin
Fri, Feb 21st: 🧠 GenAI Collective 🧠 Corporate by Day, Entrepreneur by Night
🏛️ Washington DC
Thu, Feb 19th: DC Tech Party #3: The Match Lab 🧪
Fri, Feb 21st: AI Soirée: The Human Alignment Question
🎲 Las Vegas
Tue, Mar 11th: 🧠 GenAI Collective x HumanX 🎲 AI Leaders Convergence
The Start of US DeepSeek Bans?: US States Take Action
Adapted from GovTech, February 13, 2025.
As of February 14, 2025, three states have banned DeepSeek, the Chinese-owned AI application, on government devices. Here's a quick rundown of the current situation:
Texas (Jan 31): First to ban DeepSeek, RedNote, and other Chinese-affiliated apps
New York (Feb 10): Prohibited DeepSeek downloads on state-managed devices
Virginia (Feb 11): Executive Order 26 bans DeepSeek on state devices and networks
In Oregon and North Carolina, state IT and risk leaders added DeepSeek to a list of banned applications on state devices. In the Kansas State House, HB 2313 is in hearings, with potential to head down a similar trajectory.
Where to watch next:
Texas AG launched an investigation into DeepSeek on Feb. 14
US Federal legislation introduced to ban DeepSeek on government devices
This coordinated push highlights deepening scrutiny of Chinese tech firms amid global AI hegemony struggles, prioritizing infrastructure security over cost-driven AI adoption—a trend likely to accelerate as states weigh open-source AI’s risks against its competitive allure. Concerns driving the bans include national security, data privacy, and potential ties to the Chinese government. As the situation evolves, more states are likely to follow suit in restricting DeepSeek and similar Chinese-owned AI applications.
Kicking Off: The (Long and Winding) Road to GPT-5
Taken from X.com, February 14, 2025.
This week, OpenAI dropped its long-awaited announcement on the future of the ever-popular ChatGPT. As per a Feb. 12 post on X from Sam Altman, the company is on track to release GPT-5 to all users in a matter of months.
Here’s a few key details on what that roadmap looks like:
GPT-4.5 (Orion) to launch within weeks as the final non-chain-of-thought model
GPT-5 slated for release in the coming months, integrating multiple technologies
Standard GPT-5 intelligence available to all ChatGPT users at no cost
Tiered intelligence levels for Plus and Pro subscribers
Unified AI system combining o-series and GPT-series models
OpenAI's accelerated release timeline—with GPT-4.5 (Orion) launching imminently as the final non-chain-of-thought model and GPT-5's tiered intelligence system arriving by mid-2025—signals a strategic shift toward democratizing advanced AI access while further monetizing premium intelligence.
The unified architecture combining o-series and GPT-series models suggests a convergence of specialized reasoning systems, potentially redefining industry benchmarks amid intensifying competition from challengers like DeepSeek. As Fortune notes, this all comes at a pivotal moment for the company. Thanks to the DeepSeek bonanza that kicked off just two weeks ago, OpenAI’s dominance in the space appears uncertain. Altman has called the challenge from its Chinese-based rival ‘invigorating.’
Anthropic’s Next Play: Hybrid LLMs
Taken from TechCrunch, February 14, 2025.
Despite the domination of OpenAI’s GPT-5 announcement, this past week, Anthropic quietly dropped a bombshell of their own.
According to The Information, Anthropic’s newest ‘hybrid’ system, backed by the generous funding of Amazon and Google’s parent company, Alphabet, can easily switch between fast responses and deep reasoning.
Some reported features of this new model include:
Resource allocation based on task complexity
Developer-controlled "sliding scale" for fine-tuning the time spent reasoning on a given task
Superior performance in enterprise-focused coding tasks
Potential to outperform OpenAI's top public reasoning models in specific benchmarks
Anthropic's upcoming hybrid AI model introduces a paradigm shift with its dynamic "sliding scale" for resource allocation, enabling enterprises to balance cost and computational depth in real time. Unlike OpenAI's consumer-focused o3-mini, Anthropic's model excels in enterprise coding tasks—mastering complex codebases and generating functional code on the first attempt—while offering developers granular control over reasoning time and token usage. The model uses more computational resources for complex queries while handling simpler tasks efficiently like a traditional LLM. Developers can adjust a sliding scale to control the model's "reasoning" time, with a "0" setting functioning as a general, non-reasoning AI similar to OpenAI's GPT-4.
Some outlets report that this new model could appear as soon as the next couple weeks, though the true timeline is not yet entirely known. Indicators like Google’s additional $1B investment into the AI startup may suggest something big is at play.
Want to feature your insights? We’re always excited to hear from the community! ✍️
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Events Spotlight
🇨🇦Toronto
The GenAI Collective Toronto’s second-ever event was a resounding success! 🚀
Thank you to everyone who joined for our first fully Canadian GenAI Collective event. A special shoutout goes to the hosts, NextAI’s Alexandra McGregor and Fletcher McLaughlin, whose venue and hospitality created a perfect stage for the evening.
Key Highlights
Sponsors: Rootly team, including Darren Chu, JJ Tang, Ash Dehghan PhD, and Nick Chong, led an engaging discussion on "Agentic Systems: Search & Planning."
Breakout Discussions: Two rounds of dynamic conversations covered topics such as:
AI applications in healthcare, autism spectrum disorder, and creative industries
Building with AI: Hacks & Tools
Open Source vs Proprietary AI
Industries ripe for AI disruption
GenAI Collective Toronto is excited to continue pushing the boundaries of AI innovation in Canada. Come by their next event on Thursday, March 6th—venue to be announced!
Join the Community!
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We are a volunteer, non-profit organization – all proceeds solely fund future efforts for the benefit of this incredible community!
About Eric Fett
Eric leads the development of the newsletter and online presence. He is currently an investor at NGP Capital where he focuses on Series A/B investments across enterprise AI, cybersecurity, and industrial technology. He’s passionate about working with early-stage visionaries on their quest to create a better future. When not working, you can find him on a soccer field or at a sushi bar! 🍣
About Noah Frank
Noah is the co-founder of Aurix and has spent his career both working at startups and advising global leaders on innovation strategy. His work and body of research focus on AI policy, anticipatory governance, and effective decision-making. When not working to make emerging tech work for all, you can find him making music with his band.