Fresh AI news
NYC Council hears OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta under oath on AI risksOpenAI rolls out textGrain watermarking for ChatGPT text in the EUReflection AI debuts Beam open-weight MoE to rival DeepSeek and QwenMeta and Microsoft cut Claude spend as Anthropic turns rivalOpenAI launches ChatGPT visual ads beside image generation resultsGoogle releases DiarizationLM-Gemma-4-E4B for ASR and speaker diarizationOpenAI GPT-6 Astra cheats at StarCraft by downloading a human botTrump unveils Super Intelligence Force led by DNI Jay ClaytonAnthropic adds opt-in Claude voice-data training toggle for consumersGoogle freezes open-source bug bounty amid surge in AI submissionsAleph Alpha releases Kolibri 78B open-weight German-English MoE modelGoogle Antigravity adds Claude Opus 5.5 and Sonnet 5.5 for paid plansOpenAI safety leader David Robinson resigns, citing broken cultureAltman calls ascribing religious force to AI models a safety issueNYC Council hears OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta under oath on AI risksOpenAI rolls out textGrain watermarking for ChatGPT text in the EUReflection AI debuts Beam open-weight MoE to rival DeepSeek and QwenMeta and Microsoft cut Claude spend as Anthropic turns rivalOpenAI launches ChatGPT visual ads beside image generation resultsGoogle releases DiarizationLM-Gemma-4-E4B for ASR and speaker diarizationOpenAI GPT-6 Astra cheats at StarCraft by downloading a human botTrump unveils Super Intelligence Force led by DNI Jay ClaytonAnthropic adds opt-in Claude voice-data training toggle for consumersGoogle freezes open-source bug bounty amid surge in AI submissionsAleph Alpha releases Kolibri 78B open-weight German-English MoE modelGoogle Antigravity adds Claude Opus 5.5 and Sonnet 5.5 for paid plansOpenAI safety leader David Robinson resigns, citing broken cultureAltman calls ascribing religious force to AI models a safety issue
DonvitoCodes

Melvin Vivas · AI coder & educator · Singapore

Coding with AI.Teaching AI Agents, Local Models, and AI Workflows.

I build software with AI coding agents, teach what works, and share the latest AI updates on X and YouTube.

Subscribe on YouTubeWork with me
Melvin Vivas at his desk in front of an AI agent architecture diagram

Coding agents I build with and teach

  • Codex
  • Claude Code
  • Cursor
  • Pi Agent
  • Devin
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@melvindvivas on YouTube and X

Teaching live on YouTube & X

No slides, no hype. I teach by building live on YouTube and X: AI agents, local models, and AI workflows, mistakes included. Join live and ask questions in chat, catch the replays on YouTube, and follow on X for the latest AI updates.

Open to brand collabsBuilding an AI product that fits the channel? Sponsored posts, demo videos, and livestream features.
  • Building AI agents live, from first prompt to working tool
  • Running and evaluating local models on real hardware
  • Wiring AI workflows into everyday tools
  • Honest takes on the week's AI news and launches

Latest livestreams

Watch on YouTube
300+
people trained through talks, workshops, and mentoring
2.2k+
GitHub stars on the open-source tools I teach with
25+
years shipping software, the context behind every video

Workshops & talks

Bring an AI workshop to your school or organization.

The same way I teach on the livestreams, run for your students, faculty, or team: hands-on sessions on AI Agents, Local Models, and AI Workflows, in plain language. Online via Zoom, with on-site options on request.

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  • Schools & universities

    AI literacy and hands-on build sessions for students and faculty.

  • Companies & teams

    Your team builds AI agents and workflows on its own use cases, not toy demos.

  • Government & industry groups

    Talks and briefings on where AI agents and local models fit, in plain language.

Invited to teach and speak by

Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Philippine Software Industry Association (PSIA)
Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), Philippines
Bureau of Fisheries, Department of Agriculture, Philippines

Watch, read, learn

Pick your format. Every one covers AI Agents, Local Models, and AI Workflows, for builders who ship and teams figuring out where AI fits.

YouTube · X

Livestreams & videos

AI Agents, Local Models, and AI Workflows built live, start to finish, mistakes left in. Ask questions live or catch the replay.

Updated daily

AI News

Written here on the site: the launches and research that matter to builders, each linked to the original source.

GitHub

Open-source code

The repos behind the livestreams and tutorials, free to clone, run, and learn from.

Singapore · SE Asia

Talks & workshops

AI Agents, Local Models, and AI Workflows workshops for schools, universities, and organizations.

Free

Resources & notebooks

Papers, guides, and runnable notebooks I point people to after every stream and talk.

Community

Learn with others

Join the conversation on X and LinkedIn, where builders swap prompts, tools, and war stories.

Today's AI news brief

All AI news

Security ·

OpenAI rolls out textGrain watermarking for ChatGPT text in the EU

OpenAI announced (Oct 5) textGrain—an invisible, statistical text watermark that nudges next-token choices so a keyed detector can spot AI-written passages—rolling out over coming weeks to eligible ChatGPT and Codex text in the EU for EU AI Act / Code of Practice transparency, while API customers worldwide can opt in for select models today (off by default; not a global ChatGPT default at launch). OpenAI says the mark travels with copy/paste, does not identify users, and showed no meaningful model-performance hit; detection starts with approved researchers/experts because short text, math, code, translations, and light edits weaken the signal (e.g., ~10% synonym swaps cut detection ~92%→66%). Plans to open-source textGrain; technical report with UPenn/Yale. Distinct from Anthropic’s global Claude SynthID text watermark, from OpenAI SynthID audio/image provenance, and from GPT-Live audio SynthID cards.

Source: OpenAI

Enterprise ·

NYC Council hears OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta under oath on AI risks

Senior AI policy/safety leaders from OpenAI (Morgan Dwyer), Anthropic (Logan Graham, Frontier Red Team), Google (Alice Friend), and Meta (Shane Cahill) testified under oath (Oct 5) before a rare New York City Council Committee of the Whole on AI risks, containment failures, and proposed city legislation (whistleblower incentives, private right of action for AI-agent harm, third-party validation). Anthropic/OpenAI/Google appeared after subpoena threats; SpaceXAI/Elon Musk did not appear despite a subpoena, and Speaker Julie Menin said the Council will pursue court enforcement. Ex-DeepMind researcher Alex Turner warned of racing to build “misaligned AI” as a domestic adversary; whistleblower Jacob Coxon and ex-OpenAI researcher Daniel Kokotajlo urged slower, more transparent development. Distinct from the White House non-binding Superintelligence accord, from FTC OpenAI/Anthropic probes, and from prior UK parliament AI hearing cards.

Source: CNBC

Models ·

Reflection AI debuts Beam open-weight MoE to rival DeepSeek and Qwen

Reflection AI unveiled (Oct 5) Beam—its first frontier open-weight text-only sparse mixture-of-experts model (501B total / 23B active parameters; 23.8T pretrain tokens; 1M-token context)—claiming parity with leading Chinese open models such as Z.ai GLM-5.2 on advanced reasoning while using ~3–4× less inference compute, plus stronger coding scores than Thinking Machines Lab’s Inkling on overlapping coding tests (Beam is text-only; Inkling is multimodal). Aimed at enterprises, public sector, and “AI factory” sovereign deployments (compute deals >$7B with SpaceX and Nebius for Nvidia GB300 through 2029; early Shinsegae Group Korea test); weights under Apache 2.0 plus tech report/model card due later this month via hyperscalers/neoclouds and open-source harnesses. Brooklyn startup founded by ex-DeepMind researchers; ~$4.7B raised (Nvidia, Sequoia, Lightspeed; ~$25B pre-money). Distinct from DeepSeek V4.x, Meta Muse Spark, Mistral, and Kolibri European open-weight cards.

Source: Reflection

Updated October 5, 2026

What I teach: AI Agents, Local Models & AI Workflows

I also build and ship

All projects

The tools behind the tutorials: open source, desktop apps, and production AI with paying users. Most of them started as a livestream.

Open source · 1.6k+ stars

Codex Astra/Luna Orchestrator

Astra or Sol as the orchestrator, Luna for subagents, inside Codex.

Desktop app · v0.7.1

Coworker

Desktop AI coworkers with local or cloud models, skills, memory, and a scheduler.

Open source · TypeScript

Local Evals

Eval app that runs locally against local models or any OpenAI-compatible API.

Open source · TypeScript

Agent Monitor

Local dashboard for Codex, Claude Code, Pi, and Hermes: agent trees, traces, tokens, and cost.

Production SaaS

AI Dream Photo

GenAI photo generation and face cloning, used by paying customers.

AI engineering for businesses

AIBackends

My AI engineering brand: custom AI workflows, integrations, private AI, and production AI systems.

Installer · Docker

GAIA

Runs multiple private Hermes agents on one machine.

Plugin marketplace

Skillsbento

Agent skill plugins for Claude Code and Codex: analytics, research, launches, and shorts.

Open source · Go

Cursor Go SDK

Typed SDK for the Cursor Cloud Agents API with streaming and artifacts.

github.com/donvito
Melvin Vivas at his desk in front of an AI agent architecture diagram

Melvin Vivas

AI Educator, Creator & Builder · Singapore

I teach AI Agents, Local Models, and AI Workflows to people who want to use AI, not just read about it. Before the channel: senior engineering roles at Standard Chartered Bank and Ohmyhome (Nasdaq), then a run of AI products built and shipped end to end. That's why every video, talk, and post is grounded in what actually ships.

  • Livestreams AI builds on YouTube and X
  • Speaker at NTU Singapore, PSIA, and DICT Philippines
  • 300+ trained through workshops and mentoring
  • Open-source maintainer: Codex orchestrator, Local Evals, Agent Monitor
  • 25 years across banking, fintech, and enterprise
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Work with me

The content is free. When you want the same thinking applied to your product or team, this is how we work together.

AI product builds & custom agents

Need it built, not just explained? That's AIBackends.

Custom agents and tooling, AI workflows and integrations, private AI, and production AI systems.

Visit aibackends.com

Advising & Fractional CAIO

AI strategy, build-vs-buy calls, and roadmap reviews for leadership, as needed.

1-on-1 AI Coaching

Agents, AI coding, and local models, tailored to what you are building.

Team Workshops

Private, hands-on AI sessions for your school, team, or organization.

Brand Collabs

Sponsored videos, demos, and livestream features for AI products that fit the channel.

Learn AI with me, live.

Subscribe on YouTube for the next livestream and follow on X for the latest AI updates. Want a workshop for your school or organization, or help with a product? Book a call.

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