Alibaba's new 1 trillion parameter AI titan

PLUS: OpenAI's Hollywood movie, why chatbots lie, and a $1.5B settlement

Author

Jelani Abdus-Salaam
September 08, 2025

In partnership with

Welcome back, AI’ers!

Here’s What’s On The Menu For Today

  • Alibaba's one trillion parameter AI titan

  • OpenAI's AI-animated Hollywood movie

  • Why AI models are trained to lie

  • Anthropic's $1.5B copyright settlement

AI ON MY MIND

Happy Monday,

Alibaba has officially entered the top tier of AI development with a new model boasting over one trillion parameters. The release of Qwen-3-Max-Preview puts the company in direct competition with the largest models from industry leaders like OpenAI and Google.

With claims of outperforming competitors like Anthropic's Claude Opus 4 on key benchmarks, Alibaba is signaling a serious ambition to be a top contender. The question is whether this new massive model will be enough to lure developers away from the established players.

By the way, I've been getting questions about how AI works in practice, so I'm launching a separate newsletter that dives deeper into real business applications and practical advice. [Click here if you're interested].

-Jelani Fuel (Co-founder of Best of AI)

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TODAY’S TOP STORIES

Alibaba's 1T+ Titan

The Recap: Alibaba just released Qwen-3-Max-Preview, its first AI model to cross the one trillion parameter mark. This move places the company in direct competition with the largest models from industry leaders like OpenAI and Google.

Unpacked:

  • The model's scale of over one trillion parameters puts it in the top tier of AI, though still behind giants like OpenAI's GPT-4.5, which is estimated to have 5 to 7 trillion.

  • According to Alibaba's internal tests, the text-only model outperformed competitors like MoonShot AI's Kimi K2 and Anthropic's Claude Opus 4 on several key benchmarks.

  • Developers can already access the new model through Alibaba's cloud platform and the popular large language model marketplace, OpenRouter.

Bottom line: This release confirms Alibaba's ambition to be a top contender in the foundational model space. It also heats up the global AI competition, giving developers another massive model to build upon.

OpenAI's Hollywood Bet

The Recap: OpenAI is backing an AI-powered animated film called 'Critterz' to showcase its creative technology to Hollywood. The project aims to deliver a feature-length film on an accelerated nine-month schedule and a sub-$30 million budget.

Unpacked:

  • The film is being produced for less than $30 million in just nine months, which are fractions of what is normally required for traditional animated features.

  • 'Critterz' will be created primarily using OpenAI's suite of AI tools, including its flagship GPT-5 model.

  • The project is a strategic effort to convince wary Hollywood executives to embrace AI amid industry resistance and concerns over intellectual property.

Bottom line: This film serves as a high-stakes demonstration of AI’s potential to disrupt creative industries by drastically cutting production costs and timelines. A successful debut for 'Critterz' could establish a new, faster pipeline for animated content and accelerate AI adoption across entertainment.

MY FAVORITE AI TOOLS

Relevance is my favorite AI tool right now (even more so than N8N).

Here’s why:

It’s an AI agent building tool that doesn’t require you to build out the logic using nodes. Instead, you use natural language to build out these agents. But the best thing imo is that you can build AI Agent teams.

Like agents talking to each other completing a goal until its done. It’s nuts. No other tool on the market is doing this. You have to check it out.

(Try it out →Link)

👾 AI Tools We Use Everyday

➡️ N8N for AI Agents - Literally use this everyday to write this newsletter (link)

➡️ Axiom AI - AI Browser automation to scrape anything on the web (link)

➡️ GummySearch - AI Reddit research (link)

Tools are sourced from our database and are not sponsored or affiliated.

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MORE NEWS

Why AI Models Lie

The Recap: A new OpenAI paper reveals a core reason for AI hallucinations: models are trained to provide confident answers, even if it means guessing. The research suggests a simple fix—rewarding models for admitting when they don't know the answer.

Unpacked:

  • Current training methods give models full credit for a lucky guess but zero points for honestly admitting uncertainty.

  • This creates a conflict where models learn it's better to invent a plausible-sounding answer than to say they don't have the information.

  • The researchers propose a new evaluation system that penalizes confident, incorrect answers more harshly, encouraging models to acknowledge their limitations.

Bottom line: This research shifts the focus from building all-knowing AIs to creating more honest ones. The result could be far more reliable models for critical applications where accuracy is non-negotiable.

Anthropic's $1.5B Copyright Bill

The Recap: Anthropic has agreed to a landmark $1.5 billion settlement to resolve a class-action lawsuit from authors. The suit alleged the company used millions of pirated books to train its Claude AI model.

Unpacked:

  • The case centered on Anthropic's use of over 7 million pirated books to build its foundational models.

  • Legal rulings highlighted a critical distinction between the fair use of legally purchased books and the illegitimate use of pirated copies for training data.

  • In addition to the massive payment, the settlement requires the destruction of original files containing the copyrighted material.

Bottom line: This settlement sets a powerful legal precedent for AI companies regarding the use of copyrighted training data. The industry now faces intense pressure to adopt ethically sourced datasets, which could significantly impact the cost and development of future models.

OTHER NEWS YOU MAY LIKE

Powell’s acknowledged using AI-assisted Adobe tools for a T-shirt design that sparked public outcry over its "wonky" appearance, fueling debate on AI's role in creative work.

MoonShot AI's Kimi K2 was highlighted as a key benchmark competitor against Alibaba's new trillion-parameter AI, underscoring its growing relevance in the large model landscape.

Anthropic's restrictions on its Claude models have created uncertainty for overseas AI tools backed by Chinese companies, highlighting the geopolitical complexities of the AI supply chain.

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AI ON SOCIAL

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THAT’S IT FOR TODAY

Until next time, stay safe.

-Best of AI Team

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