Unruly Futures and Unruly Futures
Hello from sunny and hot Miami! No wonder so people have moved from NYC to here. The venture scene sure has benefited from that. While the number of interesting startups is still ~0, the amount of capital that gets allocated from these brand-new, oceanfront skyscrapers is increasingly substantial - with a non negligible amount for deeptech.
But back to the most interesting thoughts of the week.
Have we peaked?
Sadly, the title does not refer to the macro scenario, or to AI funding, or other tech aspect. It refers to humans.
I've maintained the view that humanity's genetic material as related to its body has peaked already (with medicine essentially tricking death and bringing so many more people into child-rearing age than what would have "naturally" happened, including myself), I never really thought that our "mental" genetic makeup would have peaked, and that if there is such a thing as "genetic intelligence", we still had a run up ahead of us.
Now, it's sadly looking like that might not be the case anymore: human concentration, verbal reasoning, and numerical skills are all on a downfall. The causes are almost comically easy to identify, but we really have no designed or even imagined solution as to how to reserve the course of things. We instead continue to create infinite amounts of content (be it epic entertainment or social media slop), constant comfort augmentation in all areas and extreme healthcare which only treats the symptoms.
We have slowed if not stopped natural selection, and looks like we're doing natural selection now as well.
Depressing to think about, BUT at least, the latest investment we've committed to, with our largest check, is a company who instead can dramatically accelerate natural selection for the better. Let's see if we can have an impact here.
The rest of the newsletter is probably more positive and AI developments—such as Stripe’s autonomous financial system concepts, Google’s latest edge-friendly model, and new robotic intelligence breakthroughs—to fresh perspectives on biotech and fertility. We see mathematicians wrestling with AI’s disruptive potential, venture capitalists speculating on the future of coding, and scientists converting skin cells to neurons at record rates. Macro / geopol forces come into view with discussions of China’s talent re-import for fusion research and Europe’s evolving approach to industrial sovereignty.
Enjoy.
Stripe building more financial agents: a look at what an autonomous financial system might look like
Building a conscious thing: "consciousness is when reality folds itself in a look". hyper-modelling AI loops to make conscious things.
Simon Willison on how to use LLMs to write code: a full how-to guide to do proper AI-driven coding.
Google introduces Gemma3: ai will run at the edge. This is the smartest model you can run on a single GPU.
The divide between AI and mathematics: everyone is struggling to understand what AI means for their fields, and is scared that it will change everything, sometimes getting so advanced that there will be no way for humans to keep up in even understanding what the AI does. Mathematicians are no exception and this is a beautiful piece to read.
Andrew Chen on what will happen with vibe coding: nothing groundbreaking, but good summary of where the VC thinking is today in regards to the future of software dev.
Maybe humans just peaked
The FT reports data indicating a global decline in human concentration, verbal reasoning, and numerical skills, suggesting a potential peak in cognitive capacity. Could be aging populations, devices-induced attention disorders, and educational disparities. But are we becoming a post-literate society?
Fertility on demand
That fertility will be entirely engineered, it has already become clear. This long-form by Ruxandra Teslo discusses why women choose to have kids later, what it means for fertility, and what can technology do to help.
Family planning via genetic matching
Nucleus Genomics introduces family planning by syncing genetic results with your partner, and scanning over 1000 conditions that could be passed to your kids.
Turning skin cells into neurons
Katie Galloway's lab at MIT develop a conversion method that increases the conversion of fibroblasts to motor neurons 100x, without going through iPSCs.
Intel names Lip Bu Tan as CEO
Legendary former CEO of Cadence and founder of Walden International has the daunting mission of leading Intel out of stagnation. Intel stocks went stonk, gaining 25% since the announcement.
Too cheap to meter
The second film by Story Co., on what energy was supposed to be, and will be if we get serious about it.
Global Stellarator Coil Optimization with Quadratic Constraints and Objectives
QUADCOIL introduces a fast, global coil optimization method for stellarators, targeting linear and quadratic current functions. It enhances physics objectives like Lorentz force and curvature, surpassing limitations of NESCOIL and REGCOIL.
A gemini robot
Google DeepMind unveils Gemini Robotics, a vision-language-action (VLA) model built on Gemini 2.0, integrating physical action as an output modality for direct robot control. Gemini Robotics-ER, enhances spatial reasoning, enabling embodied reasoning for roboticists to interface with existing controllers, tested on platforms like ALOHA 2 and Apptronik’s Apollo humanoid.
A bit of an overkill
Figure AI reveals BotQ, their new infrastructure to manufacture robots. The video is impressive, but the announcement has received mixed reactions. A take on why this could be a bit of an overkill, for a 12k robots/year production line, here.
From China with love
The stakes in AI development are high. Dario Amodei reveals that nation-state spies are targeting the company's AI models, where a few lines of code can be worth $100s of millions.
And some more China content:
On Europe's industrial prosperity
A few suggestions by Sam Cash on European sovereignty, from procurement to M&A and soft power.
And a few more updates from Europe's defence awakening:
Despite the old challenges - Northvolt files for bankruptcy in Sweden
On the US:
Breakthrough Energy cuts jobs across Europe, policy and partnership teams
SpaceWERX selects eight companies for $440m in Strategic Funding Increase agreements
Let us know what you think of this format, and if you have anything else we should read!
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