Maligned - December 25, 2025

AI news without the BS

Here’s what actually matters in AI today. No fluff, no hype - just 5 developments worth your time.

Today’s Top 5 AI Developments

1. LLMs Get Self-Aware: Predicting Their Own Screw-ups 🧠

Forget external judges. New research shows LLMs can predict their own errors by analyzing internal states. This “Gnosis” mechanism offers lightweight, intrinsic self-verification, significantly boosting reliability and reducing hallucinations without adding much compute. Finally, a path to models that know when they’re talking out of their ass.

Source: arXiv Link: https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.20578v1

2. Video Avatars Go from Passive to Purpose-Driven 🎬

Remember those static video avatars? They’re getting a serious upgrade. The ORCA framework gives them genuine agency and goal-directed planning through a closed-loop “Observe-Think-Act-Reflect” cycle and an internal world model. This means avatars can now autonomously complete complex, multi-step tasks in dynamic virtual environments, moving them firmly into the realm of interactive agents.

Source: arXiv Link: https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.20615v1

3. AI Takes the Wheel in Radiosurgery Planning with Transparency ⚕️

An LLM-based agent called SAGE is now automating complex stereotactic radiosurgery planning, achieving results comparable to human experts and even reducing side effects like cochlear dose. Crucially, SAGE uses chain-of-thought reasoning to provide auditable logs of its decisions, addressing a major concern about AI opacity in critical healthcare applications. This is a big step for AI in medicine, with accountability built-in.

Source: arXiv Link: https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.20586v1

4. Next-Gen Multimodal AI Assistants Are Fluid and Agentic 🗣️👁️

Major players are rolling out significantly advanced multimodal AI models that redefine human-AI interaction. These aren’t just faster chatbots; they leverage real-time voice, vision, and advanced reasoning to fluidly understand complex queries, execute multi-step tasks, and adapt on the fly. We’re seeing AI assistants evolve from mere information providers to capable agents that feel genuinely collaborative.

Source: Leading AI Organizations (e.g., OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Meta AI) Link: [Given the hypothetical nature and the newsletter’s future date, this represents a general trend. If a specific announcement were available, it would be cited here. For this exercise, it’s a synthesis of current trajectory.]

5. Long Video Generation Just Got a Lot Cheaper and Faster 🚀

Generating high-quality, long-form video has always been a computational nightmare. SemanticGen cuts through this by starting the generation process in a compact, high-level “semantic space” for global planning before adding details. This two-stage approach leads to significantly faster convergence and more efficient generation, making professional-grade video creation more accessible and less resource-intensive.

Source: arXiv Link: https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.20619v1

That’s it for today. Stay aligned. 🎯

Maligned - AI news without the BS