Support The Automated Daily directly: 15 free episodes a day, 5 editions, 3 languages, about $4 a day to produce. A coffee keeps it going: theautomateddaily.com/support Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: - Lindy is your ultimate AI assistant that proactively manages your inbox - https://try.lindy.ai/tad - Consensus: AI for Research. Get a free month - https://get.consensus.app/automated_daily - Invest Like the Pros with StockMVP - https://www.stock-mvp.com/?via=ron Today's topics: Old CNN Beats Frontier LLMs - A dermatologist tested GPT-6 Astra and Claude Fable 5.1 against a 10-year-old convolutional neural network on 200 biopsy-confirmed skin lesions. The specialized CNN reached 62% accuracy versus 42% for each LLM, highlighting the limits of chatbots in medical diagnosis. OpenAI Anthropic LLM Price War - OpenAI and Anthropic have cut LLM token prices by up to 80% in a few months, with open-weight rivals like DeepSeek and Moonshot AI adding pressure. Commoditization, cheaper cache-read pricing for agentic coding, and IPO positioning are driving the AI price war. IBM Bets on Open-Weight AI - IBM CEO Arvind Krishna says open-weight AI models are now cheap and capable enough for on-prem enterprise deployment. The view supports IBM's AI infrastructure strategy, including Spyre accelerators and mainframes, amid a mixed quarter. Amazon Toddler Tablets Spark Concern - Amazon launched toddler-focused tablets marketed as a child's first tablet, drawing criticism as a digital pacifier. Concerns include early childhood screen time research, generative AI features that may limit creativity, and children's voice data privacy. Dolly Parton's Imagination Library Grows - Dolly Parton's Imagination Library mails free, age-appropriate books to children from birth to age five. Started in East Tennessee in 1995, the nonprofit early literacy program now runs in the US, Canada, UK, Australia, and Ireland. FOSDEM Digital Dissident Devroom Launches - FOSDEM 2027 will host a new Digital Dissident devroom focused on anti-censorship tools, metadata-resistant messaging, and surveillance resistance. The call for participation runs until November 30, 2026, ahead of the January event in Brussels. Demoscene Origins of a Programmer - A programmer shares how childhood exposure to BBS culture, game piracy, cracktros, and the demoscene led to learning Pascal. The essay captures the shift from consuming games and demos to creating them. TitleArt Revives Nineties Word Art - TitleArt is a browser-based tool for creating retro 1990s-style word art with 3-D effects, shadows, motion, and clip art. It exports PNG, SVG, GIF, and video, mixing nostalgia with modern web design. Overgrown Chrome Extension Punishes Tab Hoarding - Charlie Gerard's Overgrown Chrome extension lets virtual vines slowly cover unread browser tabs until users clear them away. The playful project turns tab hoarding into a game-like interactive experience. - Old CNN Beats Frontier LLMs at Skin Cancer Diagnosis - Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library Expands Global Free Book Program - FOSDEM 2027 Devroom Will Focus on Anti-Censorship Tools - Why OpenAI and Anthropic Are Slashing LLM Prices - Overgrown: A Chrome Extension That Lets Plants Take Over Abandoned Tabs - IBM CEO Says Cheap Open-Weight AI Is Driving On-Prem Demand - TitleArt Brings 1990s Word Art to the Web - How Childhood Demos and BBS Culture Inspired a Programmer - Amazon’s New Toddler Tablets Draw Concern Over Screen Time and AI Episode Transcript Old CNN Beats Frontier LLMs Let's start with that hook. A dermatologist ran a small experiment pitting two frontier language models, GPT-6 Astra and Claude Fable 5.1, against a convolutional neural network that's about a decade old. The test set was 200 skin lesions, all confirmed by biopsy. The veteran CNN picked the correct diagnosis 62 percent of the time. Both chatbots landed at 42 percent, and the older model stayed ahead even when a second guess was allowed....
