We Still Talk About You, ‘Titanfall 2’ (io9 (Gizmodo))

GRANT BRICKMAN: Breaking: ten years on, people are still telling each other to play Titanfall 2. Gary is live.

GRANT BRICKMAN: Breaking news this afternoon, and it just landed: a decade on, people still talk about Titanfall 2. We go straight to Gary. ▶

GRETA FOOTNOTE: It came out October 28, 2016, on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC. io9 says it has one of the strongest big-budget campaigns around. ▶

GARY: Gary live at the arcade, ten years later. Lights are low, the cabinets hum, and a creeper is standing right behind me. Unbothered. ▶

GARY: The original Titanfall was multiplayer-only. Story moments were built into matches, but the chaos of other players drowned them out. ▶

GARY: File footage: the sequel gave us a real campaign. Rifleman Jack Cooper is forced to pilot the Titan BT-7274 against the Interstellar Manufacturing Corporation. ▶

GARY: io9 says the magic is in the telling: the IMC radio chatter, and picking Jack's replies in chats with BT. Campaign rating: five hearts out of five. ▶

GARY: The game goes on sale regularly, and the article says that keeps drawing the demand: Play this game! Back to you. ▶

GRANT BRICKMAN: So BT is a robot? Is that the AI? The one guy who does all the AI? ▶

GRETA FOOTNOTE: BT is a Titan, Grant. A mech. Ten years later, it still has better chat than most of us. ▶

The most important part of AI chatbots is being ignored (New Scientist)

GRETA FOOTNOTE: Chatbots are many pieces of software in one. Our panel fights over the one nobody mentions.

GRETA FOOTNOTE: For viewers just joining: we first told you about this today at 14:29. New Scientist says the ignored part of chatbots is the harness. ▶

GRETA FOOTNOTE: The column says firms can boost a chatbot without a new model, just by improving that software. Lyle, you first. ▶

LYLE HOTCHKISS: A harness! This is the Great Wall of China of chatbots, and nobody has put it on a postcard. ▶

PRUDENCE NUANCE: Both matter. The article just seats the model and the harness at different tables. ▶

GRETA FOOTNOTE: The writer also asks whether AI will soon be able to rewrite that code itself. Lyle? ▶

LYLE HOTCHKISS: By the first of March the harness rewrites itself and takes my parking space. Mark my words. ▶

PRUDENCE NUANCE: If it rewrites itself, who signs it off? The report doesn't say. ▶

LYLE HOTCHKISS: It's a scandal nobody cares about the harness. Actually, I don't care either. Next topic. ▶

PRUDENCE NUANCE: The writer admits they once dismissed the interface. Possibly the same mistake, twice. ▶

GRETA FOOTNOTE: They never agree, and I'm not asking again. Vote on our poll: harness or model? We'll be right back. ▶

REPO CHECK (PXL)

GRANT BRICKMAN: Repo Check: a trending Python tutor with 47,558 stars goes on the scale.

GRANT BRICKMAN: Time for Repo Check, where we weigh a trending GitHub repo against its stars. Today: HKUDS slash DeepTutor, written in Python. ▶

GRETA FOOTNOTE: It picked up 2,376 stars today. Vera, the board. ▶

DR. VERA VECTOR: Stars: 47,558. Age: nine months. Last release: 2026-10-18. Contributors: 242. Open issues and pull requests: 230. ▶

KAI: DeepTutor is the future, full stop. Lifelong personalized tutoring, 87 releases, 5,866 forks. Huge. I assume it works with one USB-C cable. ▶

GRETA FOOTNOTE: The description reads: DeepTutor, Lifelong Personalized Tutoring, then a lone period. Even the punctuation is personalized. ▶

KAI: A lifelong tutor. Finally someone to explain my keyboard layout to me. Huge. ▶

DR. VERA VECTOR: Stars count attention. Whether the attention turns into learning is a question this card leaves open. ▶

GRANT BRICKMAN: Stars today: 2,376. Lessons learned: pending. Back after this. ▶