“What did you do as a child that made the hours pass like minutes? Herein lies the key to your earthly pursuits.”
- Attributed to Carl Jung
Robots are Coming (Again?)
Yes, I wrote about this in a previous edition. No, I will not stop talking about the things I find interesting!
Figure, a leading robotics company focused on developing humanoid robots for commercial and industrial applications, is pushing forward with alpha tests of its humanoid robot in homes starting this year. Yes, I said this year.
Typically, people I speak to about this are polarized. Either they are terrified of an "I, Robot" scenario or they are super excited about never having to wash dishes again. I am in the latter camp.
The target price point for mass adoption seems to be floating around the $20K point right now. What would you pay to never have to do chores again? Check out this article to learn more.
Alexa Is No Longer Just Listening
On February 26, Anthropic announced a partnership with Amazon to deliver Alexa+. It will start rolling out in the US over the next few weeks.
I have an Alexa that I never turned on sitting in a box somewhere. I'm terrified of the always-listening, internet-connected, data-collecting thing. At the same time I can imagine Alexa+ being super useful. "Hey Alexa, order me more dish soap. Same kind as last time." And then it just does it and you get your dish soap delivered in a smiling cardboard box the following day.
Yeah, cool. Still not worth it to me. This highlights one of the moats Apple has that they need to protect at all costs - Privacy. If Amazon could explain in detail how Alexa is: 1) Prevented from processing information until the keyword is spoken, 2) Prevented from storing any conversation data, and 3) Super secure from hacks, then maybe I'll give it a chance.
On the data storage...I understand how difficult it is to provide useful tech without storing the data for training, but people want privacy! Use AI to simulate the damn requests!
Meme of the week
Open Source in Jeopardy?
In a previous edition I brought up the power of and need for open source AI models. For the non-techies out there, open source is not a new thing in this world of AI. Many of the technologies that exist today in the coding world are powered by open source projects.
When someone pours their heart and soul into an open source project, the reward (if it's useful) is visibility. This allows folks to earn compensation for all their hard work through job offers, paid speaking fees, etc.
What's the incentive to maintain these open source projects with updates, improvements, and fixes over the long term? For extremely large projects, there are groups of contributors to assist the creators. But for smaller projects, they can crash and burn. These smaller projects are often used by code bases of companies in their software creation.
Similar to a non-profit, these open source projects may require funding. How do we connect the incentives properly? You can't put a paywall on these things, but it is a symbiotic relationship between the creator and user. Hopefully someone much smarter than me can come up with a solution so that we don't lose the power of open source. Here is a more in-depth analysis.
Automate Everything!
At my last job I worked on an automation building tool. As part of that work, I did a ton of research into the cutting-edge automation builders (Zapier, Make, n8n, etc). The one feature that stood out to me from my research was putting in human stop-gates.
Automation is a buzzword, similar to AI. People are trying to automate as much as they can to cut costs and improve efficiency. There is a lot of opportunity here, but also a lot of bullshit.
AI Agents are essentially self-generating automation builders that eliminate the human-in-the-loop. They can be useful, but are prone to mistakes. I don't know if there will ever be a time where LLMs aren't prone to mistakes. In that world, building human stop-gates into automation and AI agents will give people peace of mind. This is a huge deal in many industries, where the risk of doing something incorrectly can be catastrophic.
Humans make mistakes, but it's much easier to explain a human error to a customer than a software one. It can be the difference between forgiveness and churn.
Good News!
U.S. states are making rapid progress on renewables. This spring, wind and solar are set to supply nearly 50% of Texas’ power demand. In Minnesota, the state’s largest utility provider has unveiled plans to achieve carbon-free energy by 2035. Meanwhile, just 48 days into 2025, California has cut fossil gas use for electricity by nearly 28%, while battery usage has surged 78%.
My two cents: The expansion of renewables is promising, but it also comes with trade-offs that aren’t always acknowledged. I'm not a scientist, so I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I do think it’s important to recognize that the costs and impacts of these transitions aren’t evenly distributed.
Living in Pennsylvania, I haven't personally noticed effects of climate change. That doesn’t mean the issue isn’t real or that I don't believe it's real — it just means my perspective is shaped by what I’ve seen firsthand.
I find it challenging to trust people when they talk in absolutes from either side of this discussion. When someone says the world is going to end in 10 years if we don't eliminate carbon dioxide emissions, they've lost me. When someone says climate change is fake they've lost me too. The truth usually lies somewhere in between, but people who work in this domain are automatically categorized into one camp or the other (climate absolutists or climate change deniers). Not only are they categorized in this way, it becomes their persona and the basis for everything they say. There seems to be no room for discussion in between, where reasonable solutions are found.
I want clean air, pristine nature, a stable climate, clean and safe water, and a secure, nutritious, and plentiful food supply. These are things that matter regardless of where someone stands on the specifics of carbon emissions or energy policy. The majority of captial being deployed today is not working to these ends. Conversations around climate and energy should focus on tangible outcomes that improve people’s lives, rather than being reduced to ideological battles about carbon credits and cows farting.
My bigger concern is that policy decisions often seem more driven by headlines and politics than by well-structured priorities. I’d rather see a clear, pragmatic approach where incentives are aligned to achieve real progress — one that prioritizes impact over rhetoric. When priorities are misaligned, capital gets wasted, and we end up slowing down the solutions we actually need. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
Will Your Dog Outlive You?
An anti-aging pill for dogs has been certified by the FDA as 'effective' and having a 'reasonable expectation of efficacy.' Obviously animal testing is a controversial topic and I won't discuss that at all. But holy shit, "the company noted that it could give canines a minimum of one extra year of healthy life."
Okay so your dog likely won't outlive you, but this is exciting! If this works for dogs, it's a step in the right direction for something similar to improve human health.
The company importantly notes, "We’re not making immortal dogs," so don't worry to that end! Read more here.
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