Code Red, AI Slop & Open Source Shake-Ups

Welcome to another week in the Monkey Patching universe. We had a lot this week! Check out below what we discussed during this week’s pod plus a few other tidbits that didn’t make the show. Thanks for checking in! ❤️

Bun is joining Anthropic | 2025-12-02
JavaScript runtime Bun has been bought by AI lab Anthropic, which will use it to power Claude Code and other tools while keeping the project open source and led by the same team. The deal swaps startup uncertainty for deep-pocketed backing and raises fresh questions about big labs owning key developer infrastructure.
https://bun.com/blog/bun-joins-anthropic

The Junior Hiring Crisis | 2025-11-29
Annie Hedgpeth warns that as companies lean into artificial intelligence (AI), junior hiring in technical roles is dropping, leaving graduates facing tougher odds for a first job. She links the crisis to eroding apprenticeships and weak mentoring incentives, and argues that early-career people must double down on relationships and “relational intelligence” that AI cannot replace.
https://people-work.io/blog/junior-hiring-crisis/

OpenAI says it plans to report stunning annual losses through 2028—and then turn wildly profitable just two years later | 2025-11-12
Fortune reports that OpenAI expects to burn through billions in cash each year, including an eye-popping projected $74 billion operating loss in 2028, before swinging to big profits around 2030. The bet hinges on locking in up to $1.4 trillion in long-term compute deals, setting up a stark contrast with Anthropic’s more conservative path to break-even.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/openai-says-plans-report-stunning-161814899.html

Next ChatGPT upgrade imminent following ‘code red’ declaration | 2025-12-05
9to5Mac reports that OpenAI declared a internal “code red” after Google’s Gemini 3 launch and is now rushing out a GPT-5.2 update for ChatGPT far sooner than its last major refresh. Rather than flashy new features, the release is expected to focus on speed, reliability, and customization to close the perceived performance gap.
https://9to5mac.com/2025/12/05/next-chatgpt-upgrade-imminent-following-code-red-declaration/

Goodbye, Microsoft: Schleswig-Holstein relies on Open Source and saves millions | 2025-12-07
Germany’s state of Schleswig-Holstein says it will save over €15 million a year by replacing most Microsoft Windows and Office licenses with LibreOffice and other open-source tools. Nearly 80% of workstations have already switched, but opposition politicians warn that migration hiccups and frustrated staff show how hard digital “sovereignty” is in practice.
https://www.heise.de/en/news/Goodbye-Microsoft-Schleswig-Holstein-relies-on-Open-Source-and-saves-millions-11105459.html

IBM to Acquire Confluent | 2025-12-08
Confluent has agreed to be acquired by IBM in an all-cash deal at $31 per share, with the data-streaming company set to operate as a distinct brand inside IBM once regulators sign off. CEO Jay Kreps frames the move as a way to put Kafka-era streaming at the core of IBM’s hybrid-cloud and AI ambitions, while promising continuity for customers and staff.
https://www.confluent.io/blog/ibm-to-acquire-confluent/

Evidence That Humans Now Speak in a Chatbot-Influenced Dialect Is Getting Stronger | 2025-12-07
Gizmodo surveys research and anecdotes suggesting our everyday speech is starting to borrow the vocabulary and rhythms of large language models, from YouTube comments to Reddit confessionals. Moderators and writers describe AI “slop” as so pervasive that even human posts and political speeches can sound synthetic, blurring the line between organic voice and machine-trained style.
https://gizmodo.com/chatbot-dialect-2000696509

Meet Pebble Index 01 - External Memory For Your Brain | 2025-12-09
Pebble’s creator unveils Index 01, a stainless-steel smart ring with a button and microphone that lets you capture quick voice notes and reminders, then process them on your phone with local speech-to-text and AI. With no always-on listening, no subscription, and a battery designed to last years, it reframes “external memory” as a tiny, hackable tool rather than a full-blown wearable computer.
https://repebble.com/blog/meet-pebble-index-01-external-memory-for-your-brain

Tidbits

A few more tidbits, didn’t get to touch upon them during the pod, but still newsworthy :)

There’s So Much AI Crap | 2025-12-05
Bart, co-host of The Monkey Patching Podcast, vents about a flood of AI-generated outreach—podcast pitches, job applications, conference proposals—that all share the same over-polished, fake-personal tone. He argues AI is fine for prep work, but when people won’t invest even ten real minutes of attention, the tech ends up eroding trust instead of building relationships.
https://barts.space/theres-so-much-ai-crap/

Introducing Mistral 3 | 2025-12-02
Mistral AI launches Mistral 3, a family of open, multimodal and multilingual models that includes three compact “Ministral” edge models and Mistral Large 3, a sparse mixture-of-experts with 41 billion active and 675 billion total parameters under an Apache 2.0 license. Positioned as a frontier-class open-weight alternative, the lineup is tuned to run everywhere from data centers to laptops, challenging closed systems on both performance and cost.
https://mistral.ai/news/mistral-3

DeepSeek-V3.2 Release | 2025-12-01
DeepSeek has released DeepSeek-V3.2 and V3.2-Speciale, new reasoning-first models for agents that it claims deliver GPT-5-level performance while staying open source and API-accessible. The update folds "thinking mode" directly into tool use and offers a temporary high-octane V3.2-Speciale endpoint through December 15, 2025, inviting developers to test its competition-grade math and coding skills.
https://api-docs.deepseek.com/news/news251201

Introducing: Devstral 2 and Mistral Vibe CLI. | 2025-12-09
Mistral announces Devstral 2, a next-generation coding model family with a 123B flagship and 24B “Small” variant, both open-source and scoring up to 72.2% on the SWE-bench Verified coding benchmark. Alongside, the new Mistral Vibe command-line interface (CLI) acts as an agentic coding assistant in your terminal, orchestrating multi-file edits and tool calls in a way designed to rival proprietary code agents.
https://mistral.ai/news/devstral-2-vibe-cli