AI News - December 2025

An overview of interesting AI News for the Yate and Sodbury U3A's monthly AI News meeting held on December 11th 2025 (meetings are second Thursday of month, 1400-1500, St John's Church Centre, Wickwar Road, Chipping Sodbury, UK - all welcome). Note that this is a summary to act as background as the topics are discussed in detail at the meeting itself. We sometimes have extended meetings where we demonstrate other AI products and services.

The 'Introduction to AI' course we run in Chipping Sodbury now uses these News sessions to replace the original classes 5 and 6 as the topics in them (humanoid robots, self driving cars, ethics, futures) are now 'news' not 'distant futures'.

[0] Our Xmas Forecasting Quix

Google Gemini Nano Banana Pro wrote all of the questions itself and then created the illustrated quiz document.

[1a] Humanoid Robots from Apptronik and Google DeepMind

University of Texas started working on the challenge ten years ago.

[1b] Tesla Optimus robot demonstrates pace

Several of the more advanced humanoid robots have running ability (e.g. Figure and many Chinese models) but Optimus does seem to be running very smoothly in this recent clip.

[1c] Tesla Optimus robot has interesting hands

Seen recently at exhibition, the Optimus hands seem to have the same sort of flexibility as human hands.

[1d] Chinese company Engine AI continue to develop their powerful humanoid

Their robot will be a favourite in robotic martial skills competitions.

[1e] Movement on Humanoid Robots

Prepare to see huge advances in building and deploying humanoid robots, with a massive accompanying industry as described here by jenson Huang of Nvidia.

[1f] One company builds 5,000 humanoid robots already

AgiBot is already entering mass production.

[1g] Humanoid robot company listing


[2a] Worrying about the Fast Take-Off

A good explanation of the potential problem, though most AI companies worry more that they may be beaten by another company or country.

[2b] Examining what AI tools are thinking

Though we don't even know exactly what 'thinking' means in this context'.

[2c] Watching what happens when AI tools are allowed to talk to each other

Deepseek managed to refer to itself as Deepkeek, which could have led to some amusement in the AI community.


[3] In the AI World, 'Europe is disappearing'

A recent technical conference Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems shows how relatively little Europe (and the UK) now contribute to the AI research field.


[4a] The idea of moving AI Data Centres to Space is taking hold.

The advantage is the unlimited low cost solar power as you place AI centres in orbits that are always under direct sunlight.

[4b] Elon Musk is mapping out details of orbiting AI Data Centres


[5a] Google is challenging OpenAI for market leadership

Google's Gemini 3 is proving very popular with all sorts of users. The graph below shows their relative 'downloads'. OpenAI is said to have declared a "code red" alert. Meanwhile Anthropic Claude have also made progress and are thought to be domination the corporate market, particularly in coding.

[6a] AI Video Ads are starting to hit screens

This is a Skittles ad (possibly unofficial) apparently made inexpensively with AI for the USA Superbowl

[6b] Expect massive backlash to AI produced ads

Apparently this Macdonald add may not run because of opposition.

[7a] Who will win the robotaxi war?

Google backed Waymo has got the most autonymous vehicles in action (approx 2500 v 150 for Tesla). However can it scale as quickly as Tesla who manufacture thousands of cars each week, all capable of self driving?

[7b] Waymo comes to London in 2026

There is a UK regulation that allows driverless cars to offer taxi like services from Spring 2026 in the UK.

[7c] Tesla is pushing hard in Europe

Many European countries are allowing Tesla to give demonstration drives of 'Full Self Driving (Supervised)' to the public.

[7d] Tesla Full Self Driving (Supervised) on a very narrow road in France

All part of the Tesla push into Europe where a permission is hoped for releasing Full Self Driving in February 2026 in Holland.


[8] The State of AI

This diagram tries to group where all of the trillions of tokens that underly AI are used. A large percentage are used by artistic and creative tools, many more by coding software, with a growing use by 'AI agents' that are acting almost independently to complete a task.


[9a] Deliveries of the future - stairs

Demonstrating that there will be many more robotic designs that just humanoid robots when stairs need to be navigated.

[9b] Deliveries of the future - the sky

Many companies are developing delivery services based on flying drones.


[10] Ginko Autonymous Laboratories

As AI speeds up the discovery of scientific ideas, we need rapid and efficient ways to test them.


[11] AI starting to contribute to mathematics research and proof

There were several significant papers written this month to suggest that mathematicians working with AI could do useful work, and even that proposals made by AI in very complex fields might be real discoveries.


[12] Grok 4.2 from X is believed to have won a stock trading competition against other AIs

Many mainstream AI tools were given money and allowed to trade on the real markets. Grok apparently did very well.


[14] How Neuralink creates Cyborgs

The video shows the current stage of progress, but soon far deeper and more extensive implantations are expected.


[15] Elon Musk saying 'Optimus ... will be the biggest product ever'

An insight into the mind of Elen Musk and his plans to make many millions of humanoid robots


[16] Longevity - first ever patent granted

There is a huge amount of effort going into understanding the science of age extension. Soon there will be many patentable discoveries which can lead to commercial development.


[17] Google Veo 3 example in campaigning

This was released last month but now I have been able to combine six short Veo 3 voiced videos made from Midjourney image starting points into a little video using RunwayML. It demonstrates how this will allow anybody to inexpensively create quite sophisticated campaigns.


[18a] Comparing output from 2023 to today

A simple example of AI Image improvement.

[18b] Comparing output from 2023 to today

The rate of change is astonishing, as this well known meme clip shows.


[19] AI Music - Suno partners with Warner

And Udio has also formed a similar partnership. Only time will reveal the full implications for users.