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Claude Opus 4.8 Just Landed. But Mythos Is Coming For Everyone.
Anthropic just shipped Claude Opus 4.8: warmer, a little smarter, same price. But the real story is Claude Mythos, the bigger AI model coming to everyone in weeks. This week on AI For Humans: Claude Opus 4.8 landed and it's a little smarter, a lot warmer, and somehow the same price. A solid but incr
Show Notes
Anthropic just shipped Claude Opus 4.8: warmer, a little smarter, same price.
But the real story is Claude Mythos, the bigger AI model coming to everyone in weeks.
This week on AI For Humans: Claude Opus 4.8 landed and it's a little smarter, a lot warmer, and somehow the same price. A solid but incremental bump. Then Anthropic buried the lede: Claude Mythos, an even more powerful model class held back only by cybersecurity safeguards, is coming to everyone in weeks. The upgrade you got isn't the one to watch.
Plus: Amazon greenlights three generative AI projects and the haters rejoice (and threaten), ElevenLabs brings Stan Lee's voice to its Iconic Voices library, Hideo Kojima gets called out for AI, Spielberg draws his line in the AI sand, and Gavin unveils The Fishbowl, his small AI experiment.
THE NEXT ONE'S ALWAYS BIGGER. THAT'S WHAT… NO I MUST NOT.
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SHOW LINKS
Claude Opus 4.8 announced (Anthropic):
https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-opus-4-8
Spielberg on where he draws the line with AI (Deadline):
https://deadline.com/2026/05/steven-spielberg-where-draw-the-line-ai-1236928790/
Amazon MGM greenlights three generative AI projects (Variety):
Jorge R. Gutierrez AI Statement
https://x.com/ToonHive/status/2059727130737459424?s=20
Kojima Getting Dragged For Prada?
https://x.com/N icolasWR/status/2059283401115377904?s=20
Stan Lee joins ElevenLabs Iconic Voices:
https://elevenlabs.io/app/iconic-voices
https://x.com/ElevenLabs/status/2059668042695516628?s=20
ElevenLabs Dubbing v2
https://x.com/NevFlynn/status/2060030429038625175?s=20
Gavin's Fishbowl project:
Transcript
AIForHumansClaudeOpus48MythosIncoming
===
Kevin Pereira: [00:00:00] Claude Opus 4.8 is here, but even bigger, Claude Mythos
Gavin Purcell: What? It's Mythos, I think. It's not Mythos. I- I've
Kevin Pereira: heard everybody call it Mythos.
Gavin Purcell: I'm- I'm almost 100% sure it's Mythos.
Kevin Pereira: Claude Opus 4.8 is here, but even bigger, Mythos is coming in mere weeks, friends.
Gavin Purcell: We will dive into what got upgraded with Opus 4.8.
We got your thinking modes. We got your warmer behavior. We got your slight increases in benchmarks.
Kevin Pereira: But Gavin, we also got Mythos
Gavin Purcell: incoming. Yes. Yes, we got that, too, and especially it's time for AI summary.
Kevin Pereira: Uh, is it redo or redux?
Gavin Purcell: I think it's redo. This is another pronunciation problem. We'll leave that in.
Kevin Pereira: AI Summer
Gavin Purcell: Redux.
Kevin Pereira: Amazon picked up three generative AI projects, and nobody is angry about it, Gavin. They're not even mad at Kojima, who is in an AI video with Prada.
Gavin Purcell: Oh, and also, guess what? [00:01:00] ElevenLabs updated their AI voices to include Stan Lee, and nobody's mad about that either.
Stan Lee AI: With great power comes great responsibility Excelsior.
Gavin Purcell: Excelsior. Plus, I just released a small AI experiment that I'm calling the Fishbowl, which you can use today, and I'll tell you how I made it. Is it a screensaver for my iDevice? Probably pretty close to that, Kevin. This is AI for Humans.
Welcome everybody to AI for Humans, your twice a week guide to the wonderful world of AI. I'm Gavin Percida, that is Kevin Pereira, and we have a big one today because Kevin, there is a new foundational model launch. Whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop. We have Opus 4.8 which has dropped. Ugh. Opus 4.8 is a dot release, Kevin.
We all know that the dot releases are, are not that exciting, but here we are to tell you what has changed, and there is some change. Um, but the bigger announcement that we'll get to in a [00:02:00] second- Ugh ... is that
Kevin Pereira: in the- Gavin, I love you and I really, I do love the space, I really do, but here we are again. Let me guess.
Uh, uh, bar width got bigger and, and dot go up, line go up. Here's what... I don't, I don't actually... I don't even really care anymore. You know what I want? I need AI that just understands my nuances better. I, I need AI that feels more natural to talk to. I want something that's a stronger collaborator from, like, coding, yes, but to knowledge work, Gavin, and I just...
Just wake me when you have an update that would be interesting to me.
Gavin Purcell: Kevin, that's what they're talking about here. What? Opus 4.8 has a warmer voice. It's got a better knowledge collaborator. But I do wanna say, we're gonna get to this in a second, I think the, kind of the biggest news has been buried in this announcement, which is that Mythos, the dangerous Mythos model, the name of the gods, the thing that's gonna destroy all security, will be released to a general audience in a couple weeks.
But first, let's get back to 4.8 because 4.8 is a step change model. It is not like a n- a night and days [00:03:00] thing. There are better benchmarks. Benchmark boys show up, whoop, whoop. We're the benchmark boys. Turn the tests up loud. Check the charts. The benchmarks are pretty good, but they are small, uh, single digit increases across the board.
In fact, most of them- Yeah ... go up a bit. So we don't have to dive into that that much. But there is a really important thing to understand is that Opus 4.8 is the same price as, uh, 4.7, and it is better and more nuanced. And the other thing, Kevin, that showed up on my screen when I opened Claude today is it allows you to change your thinking, uh, behavior, meaning that they now have the high, medium, low thinking that GPT has as well, which I think is probably a welcome, uh, uh, design change for people who are burning through tokens in Anthropic.
I don't know if you saw this. There was a story of, like, all these CEOs are saying basically, "I don't- paying too much money for AI now." Yeah. So there is this, like, cost conscious effectiveness right now
Kevin Pereira: that they're maybe trying to get from- Oh, you mean the dealer opened the trench coat and got everybody addicted to the tokens hanging in their Ziploc bag?
Yes. And now they're saying, "Oh, [00:04:00] sorry." Yes. This is standard drug war stuff. I played this on the- Yes ... TI-85. Stop me if you've heard it. Tokens got more expensive. Yes. Uh, we been new, as they say. Here's what's interesting. Dan Shipper from Every, they, um, they really hammer these models in advance. They get early access and they put them through custom benchmarks.
Yes. And I always appreciate their vibe checks. What's confusing about this particular one is that, um, he says in bold on his X post, "They could have just called it Opus 5, it's that good." Which is okay, that's a strong opening. But then it- But that seems- But then by the end of it- Yes, yeah ... it says, uh, you know, "Codex is a far superior harness to the Claude desktop app, so I'm going to Codex every day."
Which I know we're talking about harness versus model, but it does like-
Gavin Purcell: Yes ...
Kevin Pereira: that is an important distinction to make. But he says it's a, an incredibly good writer, that it does good knowledge work, and, uh, it's emotionally uh, intelligent, which is interesting.
Gavin Purcell: Yeah, I think this... So, so first of all, congratulations to Dan Shipper and Every for understanding the hype post [00:05:00] idea.
Do you know what I mean? Like, you get that headline in- Yes ... and then you get those clicks, baby, moving forward. I think what's interesting about this, and it- it's one of those things where, like, it- I wonder if they would've even called this a model release in the last couple years where it might have just been a silent update to the model in some way, and maybe there's this sense because everything's starting to roll out faster.
Somebody had mentioned it's only been 42 days since the last Anthropic release, and we are speeding up release schedules. So maybe this is a way of doing that. It also could be a way of kind of getting ahead of wanting the Mythos model to come out but also have a kind of an in-between step. I do think the important thing is that a Mythos comes out in a few weeks, and they did say specifically they're still going through the security processes, but a general availability to a Mythos level model will be available to everybody in a few weeks.
And Kevin, we know that, um, there's been a lot of rumors around what, what people are calling GPT 5.6, but also June happens to be a very big release month for AI in the historical past. Like, one of the things, I was at this, uh, [00:06:00] AI at the Law event this week, and it was interesting to talk to people who come up...
And thanks for people who come up and talk about the show. There were a few people that come up and said hi, which is really nice. But I think one thing that was interesting is I realized you and I have been doing this show now for so long that we have this kind of, like, historical background that a lot of people in the AI space don't have.
And one of the things that I'm really fascinated with is, like, this cycle of, like, June does weirdly seem like this month where, like, it sets up the summer. So we joked about in the intro, like, you know, there was a story last year, it was like hot AI summer, but it does feel like we're kind of opening the door to a larger version of that with Mythos but also, you know, um, GPT 5.6 or six, whatever they're gonna call it, and then G- Gemini 3.5 Pro.
So the next few weeks could be pretty spicy, I feel like, i- in the world of AI.
Kevin Pereira: Yeah, so I mean, uh, a little bit about how the sausage is made. This model just came out at the time of recording this. Have you spent, uh, any time with 4.8? Have you had a chance to use it in anything?
Gavin Purcell: You know, I have it in my system, so [00:07:00] it did show up, and I did a couple very small things, but not enough to kind of push it in one direction.
And I will say the point models are really hard to kind of understand how they've updated. Yeah. Later in the show, I'm gonna talk about this project I worked on, which is like a nice way of doing something and kind of seeing how it can affect stuff. My goal in general is I'm gonna try to make and ship more things at large, and I think the good news is, I was saying this to somebody yesterday too, is like the models now, unless you get stopped, they're all pretty good, right?
And when I say get stopped, what I mean is like if you hit a point in your project or something you're working on and suddenly it's like you're spending an hour trying to fix stuff, then you're screwed. I have not had that problem with, you know, 4.7 or 5.5 yet. They are both pretty solid for the things that I'm trying to do.
Now, I'm not solving the Erodos problems, but I think this is one of those things that's hard to test because a point model is... A, a point change like this won't be very clear. But I think that the good news is, like, we are now entering that next stage of what AI feels like and kind of the next level up.
Kevin Pereira: You mentioned you went to AI on the Lot, and I don't want it to get lost that people [00:08:00] came up to you, which was amazing. I hope they weren't super disappointed when you said that unfortunately I wasn't there. But- In addition to showing support in person, is there a way that the people listening to this could support the podcast now?
Because everything you- you've said so far feels so impactful to so many people, but what if they're not aware?
Gavin Purcell: Like and subscribe, folks. That's what you can do. You can like and subscribe this video. You can also share it with people if you're listening to the audio. If you're on Spotify, make sure you leave us a comment.
We will reply. Also, hype the crap out of this video. Hype points on YouTube do make a difference. We've seen that before, so hype it up. We have a Patreon. We have a Buy Me a Coffee. We have a newsletter that comes out every week that I really enjoy writing, so please go and do that. And yes, Kevin, I was at AI in LA yesterday.
I'm going back today. Mm-hmm. And this is a very cool, uh, thing where basically it was a small thing that started about three or four years ago by a guy named Todd Terrazas, who's a really nice guy, who started putting together the people from Hollywood and AI, and it is really big this year. It is on the Amazon lot in Culver City, and it was very cool to see kind of the growth of this business and [00:09:00] kind of see how it has specialized and what's gone on.
But- but there's some big news that broke out of this, and it is not great for... Uh, it's great for AI creators, I think I want to establish that, but there's a lot of this kind of like AI hate that we've been discussing first and foremost. So the biggest news that came out of this was that Amazon, Amazon MGM, who has had this kind of like generative AI kind of work going on in the background, they have green-lit three series to go to Amazon Prime that are generative AI series.
And all three of these are interesting, but one of them specifically is from a very famous animation creator and director. His name is, I think his name is Jor- is Jorge, but it could be George. I'm sorry, this is a Spanish pronunciation. Jor- Jorge R. Gutierrez, who actually, uh, was one of the creators of The Book of Life feature film, and he has had a, a project green-lit, and he's very excited.
He was very excited about this. This is a big deal in a person's life when they get a project green-lit. In fact, he, he did have a very famous quote going around where he said, like, "An AI project, animation project is kind of like having sex and then being handed a baby," so that might [00:10:00] be one problem with what, what was going on.
But he got so much hate out of this announcement that he actually went on X and under- said, "I understand a lot of you are unhap- are happy with me, and a lot of you are really angry at me for experimenting with AI at Amazon." Literally, he said, "Do not come after my family. It is not okay." So he is getting death threats.
So this is the kind of world that the AI creators who are going mainstream are kind of entering in. I think that's kind of a, a, an up-and-down story. Like, it's great, we feel like, to see this AI kind of get a big announcement and it's a big deal, but also on the other side, it's this kind of underbelly of the feeling of this stuff that's been kind of s- unsettling everybody for a while.
Kevin Pereira: Yeah, I mean, there were, um, you know, s- tweets surfaced from, uh, the, the account is Mexopolis, and there were some tweets surfaced from a while back basically saying AI was slop or it's, uh, it's soulless or it's theft of artist. Um, you know, understandably common refrains from a lot of people, uh, especially those in [00:11:00] animation and, and gaming, which we'll get to.
Um, so I think some felt not only was this, like, a, a betrayal on previous feelings, but, like, oh, this goes squarely at an industry that is, um, e- even in his own words, suffering greatly in the traditional model. Yeah. Yeah. And so now you have him on stage championing AI for a company that, by the way, is, is creating a generative AI fund as well.
Yeah. They're not just green-lighting projects, but they've even got a, um, a production platform- Yeah ... which they announced as well, this Project Nara, which combines a bunch of AI tools, and they're trying to get people to use it to make generative AI. So on the one hand you have, um, excitement over the availability of, as Steven Spielberg says, a new tool- Yes
and that's all it is. Yeah. This new tool, right? And someone who finally u- I shouldn't say finally, but in the past was against it, finally uses it. Oh my God, they're, they're celebrating their, their new, uh, excitement and success with it, and then the backlash begins. Uh, h- I don't know how to reconcile that for someone.
I mean, I feel bad.
Gavin Purcell: I mean, I... Yeah. It seems like a really [00:12:00] crappy s- experience for somebody. I will say to your point, like, the animation industry, like a lot of Hollywood, as somebody who's spent time in it, is suffering greatly. And, like, he, Jorge has specifically pointed out that, like, things don't get green-lit in the way they used to, and, like, animation already was not a great economic model.
So, like, for those people out there listening who are like, "How could people be pissed about this?" I understand that, and I understand the other side that k- the general public's kind of anger towards AI at large kind of is- Yeah ... filtering through this discussion. You had brought up this thing to me about Kojima, which if you're not familiar, Hideo Kojima, a famous game designer, made Metal Gear Solid and, and Death Stranding.
What is going on with Kojima and Prada right now?
Kevin Pereira: I, I rarely know what's going on with Kojima, and that's like- ... while I'm actively playing his games. He's a, he's a fun person. He's awesome. Like, yes. He's a great person in that way. Uh, but he apparently is doing some sort of collaboration with Prada, yes, like the fashion high-end brand Prada, and there is a minute 30 long video of, of Hideo running around in, like, this, um, 1960s, [00:13:00] '70s-esque Mars Attacks looking promo for this collab with Prada, and it's, uh, it seems to be pure AI, right?
Mm. It looks like a pure AI video. And again, in the world of animation and media, in the world of gaming particularly, AI is a big no-no, and so Hideo's getting, getting fairly slammed. And some of the fans are pointing out that Hideo is quick to tweet or amplify anything that has his face or name on it-
or, uh, you know, uh, that is made by a fan. I, I don't know his social activity that, that closely, but they are pointing out it's odd that nothing regarding this video has been tweeted or announced. Uh, so I, you know, I,
Gavin Purcell: I- It's just- Again, I don't know what to say ... well, what's interesting is that, like, if
Kevin Pereira: you...
Gavin Purcell: Yeah. It feels like the kind of, like, edges of this conversation, it's almost like any time anybody does something that's even remotely AI-centric, it's like they're ready to pounce. Yeah. And I, I do think there is a level of, like, the crowd anger thing that is just focusing in on this stuff. But I, again, we've talked [00:14:00] about this on the show the last couple weeks, is like there is this bubbling underbelly right now of just people being pissed off at AI in general.
I- And we've seen it for a while, but it's getting bigger all the time ...
Kevin Pereira: once a week I get a, a tweet or some message, you know, a DM or something from a, a, a fan who says- Yeah ... that they're incredibly disappointed that I'm- Yes ... excited for or shilling for, uh, or even entertaining AI stuff, and I have to just sit back and go like, "Whoa."
Yeah. "I still have a fan." And that blows- That's pretty
Gavin Purcell: exciting. Yes ...
Kevin Pereira: my mind as someone who has followed- It feels wonderful to be playing it ... my own career, or lack thereof- Yeah ... for this long. I'm like, "That just blows my mind." So I'm just grateful to receive that. The actual message doesn't make it in. Yes.
People have to understand that.
Gavin Purcell: That's exactly, that's exactly right. But another big thing, Kevin, that just came out, and ElevenLabs is not gonna make this any better, they are now using... Do you remember ElevenLabs a while ago? We talked about this idea of their, like, iconic voices, where they have some celebrities- Yeah
that have either passed away or other ones that have just kind of given them their permission. It's Burt Reynolds, it's, uh, Michael Caine, it's a bunch of people. They have [00:15:00] now agreed to- Mm-hmm ... uh, with the Stan Lee estate to let Stan Lee's voice i- into ElevenLabs. And Kevin, I don't know if this is going to help the problem, but maybe we should take a listen a little bit to what the ElevenLab Stan Lee sounds like.
Stan Lee AI: I used to be embarrassed because I was just a comic book writer, and then I began to realize entertainment is one of the most important things in people's lives. Without it, they might go off the deep end.
Gavin Purcell: It sounds fine. I mean, what's interesting about this is if you're not familiar, like a lot of people who are younger may think of Stan Lee as like, oh, he's the iconic Marvel voice.
How could you do this? Right. Stan Lee was an ultimate shill. I want everybody to know this. As somebody who read comics a lot as a kid, there was a period of time where Stan Lee would just do anything. I greatly admire what Stan Lee built and the fact that he had co-created Spider-Man, all this stuff, but like Stan Lee was a businessman, and like so this is not that weird.
But again, it's just another kind of like it's that weird ... It's almost like an uncanny valley of how you feel [00:16:00] about AI, right? It's like we're in this world where the closer and closer it gets to how realistic it is, the weirder people start to feel about it. 'Cause before, when you and I have talked about this, when it was like really bad, like this idea of like, ah, ha, ha, it'll never be this thing.
It'll never be this way. And now with Seedance 2 or even Gemini Omnia or this sort of audio, it starts to feel like, oh, crap. It like, it is that way. It's getting closer and closer to real life, and even though it's, it kind of mimics real life, the feeling you have about people using it is a valley of like, gosh, the closer it is, it, the trickier it is for people.
Like, are they gonna get fooled by it? Yeah. Will there be something ... I, I, it's a- Well- ... weird feeling.
Kevin Pereira: No, and there's so many, you know, fans of, of, of Stan's and, and the, the legacy of his creations that would be- Yeah ... livid with his estate, even if he expressed, uh, you know, uh, uh, uh, be- for his passing, even if he expressed he would be totally open to and okay with this, there's still gonna be fans who are livid.
But what they have not considered, if I may humbly submit it, Gavin-
Gavin Purcell: Sure. Sure ...
Kevin Pereira: is that we don't know what it will [00:17:00] sound like to have Stan Lee dubbing a MrBeast video in Portuguese- ... which ElevenLabs can also do. Can we do that now? They have a new- Can we do
Gavin Purcell: it right now?
Kevin Pereira: We can't do that yet, but yes, it's-
Dubbing V2. Well, I have, I, I did request access to his voice, and they- Okay ... understandably have not granted that yet, but- Yeah ... this is, uh, the promo, some of the promo video for Dubbing V2 from ElevenLabs, and I'll play this, and then maybe we can talk for a second about why this is actually pretty, pretty fascinating.
Gavin Purcell: Pretty cool.
Mr Beast AI: We're now stranded on this deserted island And we're gonna be stranded here for the next seven days That
Kevin Pereira: was MrBeast in English, and now here he is- Yeah ... in Español.
Mr Beast AI: Pretty amazing, by the way.
Gavin Purcell: We- we've talked
Kevin Pereira: about this dubbing product a little while ago Then it jumps to Portuguese and other things.
Yeah.
Gavin Purcell: Yeah.
Kevin Pereira: Okay. What's really interesting about this model is that it retains characteristics of the original performance, right? So it, in ElevenLab's own words, the tone, emotion, delivery, those are preserved. Um, and it [00:18:00] tries to, uh, sync the dialogue with the transitions of the video as well, so the clips actually align.
And where this is, like, a game-changer is I've been kind of gallivanting around, as we've mentioned. I'm traveling internationally. Yeah, sure. I watch a lot of videos on random, odd, uh, uh, less, I'll say less, less popular countries, and a lot of the videos on YouTube now will be auto-translated into English, and when it does that, it's completely devoid of any emotion.
Yes. All of the other nat sound or, or sound effect work and, and soundtrack of the video is completely gone. And while it could be an extra amazing, hyper-targeted, qualified view for the video, it ends up being, like, a quick bounce-out for me, which might be hurting them, right? So- Absolutely ... a higher quality translator could be great, and if it is Stan Lee helping me discover, uh- That's exactly what I was gonna say.
Yes ... very, very small, remote islands and countries, I'm delighted.
Gavin Purcell: I was saying here, if, if anybody in our audience wants a project, go get Stan Lee and Michael Caine to dub, uh, Y Tu Mamá También, and bring that [00:19:00] forth to us and see how that sounds- Yes ... 'cause I bet that would be really remarkable. Yes. Kevin, before we take off here, I have one last thing I wanna shout out.
I have shipped a product that I've been working on a little bit on the side. It is a very small experiment- Yeah ... but I really want people to go out and try and play with it. It's called The Fishbowl, and this is a thing that I came up with an idea for, and I want everybody to kind of know, like, the key to this moment in AI right now is that you can make small stuff.
And this is not something I expect to blow up, but I do want everybody to try and tell me what they think. Essentially what it is is a visualization of how AI agents can talk to each other and kind of what you can get out of it. It is at fishbowl.show, and what it allows you to do is basically create a panel of four different agents of your liking.
There's a bunch of preset ones, but you can also create your own. You can either use the prompts that are there that I kind of worked with, uh, Claude to create, or you can change them. But the goal here is you give it a thing, and you can upload either a PDF or a markdown file or just a sentence about something, and those four agents will have a take on it.
They'll each have a take, and you'll watch the little pixel guys and their little kind of [00:20:00] things come up. And then you can actually ask them questions and kind of go back and forth with it. And the reason I did this is I, um, am really interested in this idea of how people, normal people out there, start to see other things that AI can do besides just answer questions in a chatbot form.
So I really would love people to go give it a shot. Go try it, and then, you know, tell me what you think. I, again, it's like I think it's a small thing, but I encourage everybody out there to go bite off a weekend project and try something like this.
Kevin Pereira: Hey, congrats on the launch, buddy. I know you've been working on this one for a minute,
Gavin Purcell: and it looks awesome.
It's, it's a small thing. Yeah, it's fun. Yeah. It's a fun thing. So please go try it, and, uh, we will see you all next week. This is AI for Humans. Bye. That was my goodbye. Mm-hmm. That's a new one. Mm-hmm. That was my- I like that ... Stan Lee. Yeah. All right, bye everybody.