AI Valley
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Chinese CEO kicked by humanoid robot

Chinese CEO kicked by humanoid robot

PLUS: Google set to launch Gemini Nano Banana 2 Flash

Barsee
08 Dec

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Howdy, it’s Barsee.

Happy Monday, AI family, and welcome to another AI Valley edition.

Today’s climb through the Valley reveals:

OpenAI’s GPT-5.2 ‘code red’ response to Google is coming this week
EngineAI CEO takes a kick from T800 Robot to settle CGI debates
Google set to launch Gemini Nano Banana 2 Flash
The New York Times is suing Perplexity
Plus trending AI tools, posts, and resources

Let’s dive into the Valley of AI…

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THROUGH THE VALLEY

1/ OpenAI’s GPT-5.2 ‘code red’ response to Google is coming this week

Image Credit: OpenAI

OpenAI is fast-tracking GPT-5.2 for release as early as December 9 after Sam Altman called a “code red” push to improve reasoning, stability, and speed. The goal is to close gaps exposed by Google’s Gemini 3 and reinforce ChatGPT’s reliability rather than add new features. At the same time, OpenAI has pulled back in-app suggestions that looked like ads, after prompts linking users to brands like Target or Peloton drew criticism. The company says no ads were being tested and new controls are in development. ChatGPT remains the global leader, but growth has slowed as Gemini, Perplexity, and Claude gain users.

2/ EngineAI CEO takes a kick from T800 Robot to settle CGI debates

Source: EngineAI

EngineAI has released a new video to prove its combat-ready T800 humanoid robot is real after days of criticism that its earlier clips were CGI. The company showed its CEO wearing protective gear and taking a full-force kick from the 75kg robot, aiming to silence doubts about the machine’s balance and power. The T800 uses actuators rated at 450 N·m of torque, which explains the impact seen in the clip but also raises safety concerns. The stunt comes ahead of EngineAI’s “Robot Boxer” event on December 24 and follows pre-orders priced at twenty five thousand dollars.

3/ Google set to launch Gemini Nano Banana 2 Flash

Image generated by Nano Banana 2 Flash

Google is preparing to announce a new Gemini model, likely Nano Banana 2 Flash. Internal code names hint at this: the Pro version was called Ketchup, and new references to Mayo point to the Flash variant. Early access shows Nano Banana 2 Flash produces outputs similar to Nano Banana 2 Pro but at a lower cost. This would let Google offer Pro-level results to more users, especially in large-scale or budget-sensitive settings. The model is expected to appear inside the current Gemini lineup, and the code updates suggest a public release is close, likely in December, as part of Google’s strategy to expand Gemini through tiered models.

4/ The New York Times is suing Perplexity for copyright infringement

CEO of Perplexity

The New York Times has sued Perplexity for copyright infringement, its second major lawsuit against an AI company. The Times says Perplexity uses its articles in answers and summaries without permission, sometimes copying passages nearly verbatim and even attributing false information to the outlet. The case adds to a growing list of publishers accusing Perplexity of scraping paywalled or restricted content. Perplexity has tried to ease tensions with revenue-sharing programs and licensing deals, but the Times says it has repeatedly asked the startup to stop using its work unless a formal agreement is reached. The lawsuit comes as publishers push for paid licensing to protect the economics of journalism.

TRENDING TOOLS

OriginalVoices > It lets you use their API and MCP to understand what real people think and feel. You can use these real-time human insights to power your AI agents, apps, and workflows *
Cua App Use > Create virtual desktops for AI agents to focus on specific apps
Memories AI - we built the world’s first Large Visual Memory Model - to give AI human-like visual memories
TruGen Al > It offers hyper-realistic video agents that see, hear, remember, and respond in real time, creating natural, human-like interactions
GLM-4.6V > It can accept multimodal inputs of various types and automatically generate high-quality, structured image-text interleaved content
Halftime > Targeted ad generation using AI that feels like a part of your movies and shows