Definition
Plain language
A cloud platform for running code in sandboxes on demand, used by AI agents.
As stated in the literature
A serverless container platform offering managed sandbox environments, used as a cost-comparison point against self-hosted sandbox stacks.
Why it matters: Serverless sandboxes make it practical to run thousands of isolated agent trials without managing infrastructure yourself.
For example, a developer might use Modal to spin up a fresh sandbox for each agent rollout and tear it down when done.
Heard on the show
“The paper is called "Native Active Perception as Reasoning for Omni-Modal Understanding," and the whole thing turns on one move: treating the act of looking at the video as a reasoning step in itself.”Episode 154 — How a 7B Model Out-Investigates a 72B One by Choosing What to Look At