Plutonic Rainbows

OpenAI has unveiled Deep research, a new AI agent integrated into ChatGPT, designed to autonomously conduct multi-step internet research for complex tasks. Leveraging the upcoming OpenAI o3 model, this tool is optimized for web browsing and data analysis, enabling it to find, analyze, and synthesize information from various online sources, including text, images, and PDFs. This capability allows deep research to generate comprehensive reports in approximately 10 minutes, a task that would typically take a human researcher several hours.

Deep research is particularly beneficial for professionals in fields such as finance, science, policy, and engineering, who require thorough and precise information. Additionally, it caters to discerning consumers seeking personalized recommendations for significant purchases like cars, appliances, and furniture. Each output is fully documented, providing clear citations and a summary of its reasoning process, which facilitates easy reference and verification of information. This feature is especially effective in uncovering niche, non-intuitive information that would typically require browsing numerous websites.

While deep research marks a significant advancement in AI capabilities, experts advise caution in relying solely on AI-generated outputs without human verification. The tool is currently available to ChatGPT Pro subscribers in the U.S., with plans for broader access in the future. OpenAI acknowledges potential limitations, such as the AI’s ability to distinguish authoritative information from rumors and accurately convey uncertainty. Despite these challenges, deep research represents a substantial step toward OpenAI’s broader goal of developing artificial general intelligence capable of producing novel scientific research.

Darkness Darkness’s debut album, Animation, is a richly satisfying exploration of extended deep cuts and machine-soul fragments, living up to every bit of its early promise. Issued by the mysterious imprint A Visiting Link as their first full-length vinyl release, it arrives in the form of an eight-track LP that showcases a range of oddball downtempo electronics — an ideal fit for anyone drawn to Actress, Andy Stott, Purelink, False Aralia, West Mineral, or 3XL.

Comparable in spirit to classic works by The Connection Machine or Actress, the album’s immersive flow runs from start to finish. Two ten-minute-plus compositions anchor the set: the stuttering, cavernous techno dub of the title cut and the febrile dream sequence of ‘Beauty of the World’. They’re complemented by shorter, more abstract pieces such as the choral pad play on ‘Exp Sample’, the lustrous harmonics of ‘Smile’, and the glowingly somnambulant techno-tronics of ‘Empresszzzz’. Written and produced by Darkness Darkness at Magnetic Dress and Dedicated Computer Realm, Animation forges a hypnotic path through spacious sound design and reflects an artist with a keen ear for detail — highly recommended for those in search of deeper musical frontiers.

The new high variant of the o3-mini from OpenAI took only 33 seconds to model this simulation, featuring a hundred colourful balls bouncing inside a rotating sphere. Each ball stores a brief record of its recent positions and draws line segments between them with gradually increasing opacity, creating a graceful fading trail. Collision detection is handled by checking whether a ball’s centre (plus its radius) has moved beyond the container sphere’s boundary, after which its velocity is reflected accordingly. This is seriously impressive stuff.

Today’s release of OpenAI’s new reasoning model offers insights that reveal more about China than the long-established American company. Deepseek has altered the trajectory of progress, impacting both the pace of development and the cost incurred by users.

Offering a generous 150 prompts a day for users on the $20 Plus subscription is likely to prompt many on the $200 Pro subscription to question whether the additional expense is justified.