Ollama vs Thinking Machines Lab

DeepSeek Launches V4.1 Flash with Novel Encoder-Decoder Architecture

DeepSeek released DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash, a 763B-parameter mixture-of-experts model employing a novel causal encoder-decoder architecture with 8B active parameters for prefill and 16B for decode. It features native vision understanding, 1M token context, an MIT license, and extreme inference efficiency, claiming up to 1/8 KV cache footprint versus V4 Flash. Independent evals (Artificial Analysis Index 40, Vals Index #1 open-weight) show it surpasses V4 Pro at lower cost. API pricing is $0.30/1M input and $1.20/1M output tokens. DeepSeek has soft-retired V4 Pro, routing traffic to V4.1 Flash. The model supports SSD offload and local deployment, with Ollama and Baseten offering day-0 support. Technical discussions highlight the architecture's novelty and potential impact on long-context agents.

• DeepSeek launched V4.1-Flash with a causal encoder-decoder architecture, 763B total params (8B prefill/16B decode active).
• Artificial Analysis Index scores V4.1-Flash at 40, above V4 Pro and below GLM-5.3-Flash.
• API pricing: $0.30 per 1M input tokens, $1.20 per 1M output tokens, cached input $0.006 per 1M.

Ollama's transparent pricing

Ollama's Pro, Max, and Team plans now use industry-standard per-token pricing with usage included on every plan.

Developer Builds Autonomous AI Agent to Hunt Paid Bounties

A developer built an autonomous AI agent that scans hundreds of online gig/bounty listings, filters scams and human-only tasks, generates deliverables using live market data and a local LLM, and notifies a human for approval. The stack uses free tools (Python orchestration, Ollama with a local model, Chart.js, public crypto APIs, GitHub Pages, Windows Task Scheduler) resulting in $0/month infrastructure cost. In 48 hours the agent found many listings but only a handful were actionable due to geo-walls, ghost sponsors, and other filters; the author highlights the need for revenue tracking and human-in-the-loop oversight.

• Author built an autonomous AI agent that scans 232+ listings across multiple platforms to find paid work and generate deliverables.
• Stack used: Python orchestration, Ollama with qwen3:4b (local LLM), Chart.js, CoinGecko, DeFiLlama, Solana RPC, GitHub Pages, and Windows Task Scheduler.
• Total stated infrastructure cost: $0/month.

Putting Task Expertise into RL Achieves State-of-the-Art Performance on Text-to-SQL

Thinking Machines Lab announced two new updates: a research breakthrough in RL for text-to-SQL and new safety research grants.

Barret Zoph Joins Google as VP of Research

Barret Zoph, co‑founder of AI startup Thinking Machines Lab and a former OpenAI employee, has taken a role as vice president of research at Google. Zoph previously co‑founded Thinking Machines with Mira Murati after leaving OpenAI in October 2024, briefly returned to OpenAI in January 2026 to lead AI enterprise sales, and departed in June 2026 after a five‑month stint. Tech reporting notes Zoph was fired from Thinking Machines earlier this year. Google said it expects Zoph to contribute reinforcement learning and post‑training expertise to its Gemini efforts. The move is one of several high‑profile executive shifts in the AI industry this year.

• Barret Zoph co‑founded Thinking Machines Lab and later rejoined OpenAI.
• Zoph spent five months at OpenAI in 2026 heading AI enterprise sales and left in June 2026.
• Zoph was reported to have been fired from Thinking Machines earlier in 2026.