Frosst: LLM architecture makes independent scientific breakthroughs fundamentally impossible
Nick Frosst · Cohere Founder, Nick Frosst: How To Compete with OpenAI & Anthropic, and Sam Altman’s AI Disservice · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · Sep 1, 2025 · at 27:01
Nick Frosst, co-founder of Cohere and former Google Brain researcher, responds to whether sequence models will eventually generate novel intellectual breakthroughs.
0:00 / 0:09exact quote · 9.7s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“No, no, that's not a matter of time. That's fundamentally the way that sequence models work. Like we are training statistical models of text.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Nick Frosst
Frosst: Sam Altman warning leaders about AI threat was disingenuous
“He did a world tour where he spoke to every major leader the world over to tell them, hey, this technology is gonna pose an existential threat. And I think that was academically disingenuous, and I think did a disservice to the technology he loves.”
Frosst: Sam Altman's AGI timeline hype does a disservice to the world
“I don't think Sam Altman has done a service to the world by talking about how close AGI is.”
Frosst: Sam Altman's AI predictions were obviously wrong when made
“I think he has made several predictions now that are wrong, and that were obviously wrong at the time he made them.”
Frosst: Current large language model technology will not lead to AGI
“I think when people are talking about building towards AGI like, I don't think this technology gets us there.”