OfficeQA Tests Real-World Reasoning. AI Designs and Assembles Objects. Data Center Water Myths. IntelliCode Disabled for Copilot.

Show notes

The AI news for December 17th, 2025

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Here are the details of the day's selected top stories:

Confrontation with Reality: New AI Benchmark OfficeQA
Source: https://www.heise.de/news/Konfrontation-mit-der-Realitaet-Neuer-KI-Benchmark-OfficeQA-11117132.html?wt_mc=rss.red.ho.themen.k%C3%BCnstliche+intelligenz.beitrag.beitrag
Why did we choose this article?
Open-source benchmark from Databricks that specifically evaluates agents in realistic enterprise workflows — useful for practitioners assessing vendor claims, for benchmarking agentic capabilities beyond generic LLM benchmarks, and for teams choosing or auditing agent deployments.

Robot, make me a chair
Source: https://news.mit.edu/2025/robot-makes-chair-1216
Why did we choose this article?
Shows a practical, human-centered advance in robotics and generative design: natural-language-to-physical-object workflows. Valuable for listeners interested in where generative AI meets fabrication, rapid prototyping, and user-driven customization.

Why figures on the water consumption of data centers are often misleading.
Source: https://www.heise.de/news/Warum-Zahlen-zum-Wasserverbrauch-von-Rechenzentren-oft-irrefuehrend-sind-11116970.html?wt_mc=rss.red.ho.themen.k%C3%BCnstliche+intelligenz.beitrag.beitrag
Why did we choose this article?
Highlights an underreported sustainability issue: how simplistic water‑use metrics mislead. Important for decision-makers, sustainability teams, and engineers designing data centers or choosing cloud providers — signals need for standardized, transparent reporting and lifecycle-based metrics.

VS Code disables IntelliCode in favor of the paid Copilot
Source: https://www.heise.de/news/VS-Code-deaktiviert-IntelliCode-zugunsten-des-kostenpflichtigen-Copilot-11115668.html?wt_mc=rss.red.ho.themen.k%C3%BCnstliche+intelligenz.beitrag.beitrag
Why did we choose this article?
Concrete example of vendor product nudging and potential developer lock-in: Microsoft is pushing paid Copilot over free IntelliCode. Practically important for developers and engineering managers — prompts audits of tooling policies, cost forecasting, and exploration of alternative IDE extensions or self-hosted solutions.

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