Sam Solomon—Notes

The AI Divide Between Alignment and Accelerationism

Tue, 20 Oct 2026 15:12:33 GMT

It's kind of interesting watching the rationalist communities of a decade ago divide on AI. Effective altruists are worried about alignment and feel it is their duty to steer it in the right direction.

On the other hand effective accelerationists believe that AI is the new fire. It is a tool that everyone should have. It may be used to cause harm or cure sickness. But the good outweighs the evil and moves us forward.

It's early, but I predict this is divide will eventually engulf our politics.

How AI Challenges Our Love of Elegant Solutions

Tue, 20 Oct 2026 10:49:50 GMT

There's something interesting here. Humans like elegant solutions, because they are easy for us to understand and explain.

I get it. I see it in my work with design systems. Build something modular because it fits nicely where it's supposed to. So everyone can see how it works.

But that belief that things should be or are elegant has probably prevented us from seeing the world as it is.

Noe1017 @Noe1017_Monad
所谓优雅的数学结构，本质上是人类为了迁就自己那点可怜的脑容量，被迫发明出来的拐杖。

一个顶尖人类数学家的工作内存，撑死也就同时追踪五六个变量的交互。

当你在算一个偏微分方程或者组合不等式时，一旦展开到三阶以上，几十个交叉项涌出来，人脑就直接宕机了。

所以人类数学家极其厌恶展开高阶项，一旦看到高阶项发散，人类的本能反应是此路不通，赶紧退回来找对称性、找不变量、搞同调代数或者几何直观，试图不展开式子就把问题绕过去。

但 AI 没有这个生理缺陷。

对于上万个并发的 Agent 来说，同时追踪一万个五阶交叉项的系数变化，跟我们算 1+1 一样轻松。

在它的视野里，根本不需要什么几何直观，它直接站在高维的代数展开式里往下看，人类觉得像乱麻一样的百项高阶余项，在它眼里就是一张明明白白的线性方程组。

既然把式子硬展开到第七阶，再凑几个待定系数就能让所有讨厌的发散项精准归零，它为什么要费劲去帮你发明一个人类能看懂的新概念？

这 700 个结果背后最无奈的黑色幽默：我们终于拿到了上帝账本里的答案，却发现上帝算账根本不用微积分，他老人家是直接拿计算器硬按出来的。

Auburn Pulls Off a 27–24 Road Upset

Sat, 17 Oct 2026 23:38:52 GMT

War Eagle!

20.5 point underdogs on an away game against the #1 team in the country

Auburn Football @AuburnFootball
One game at a time 🦅

🗣️ @CoachGolesh

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AI Lets Small Teams Outrun Large Companies

Sat, 17 Oct 2026 18:35:16 GMT

I feel like we're about to be in a space where many larger companies are just going to be blown away by small teams. Size has always worked against incumbents, but AI amplifies the inefficiencies.

Self-Driving Could Reshape Roads and Short-Haul Flights

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 13:11:39 GMT

This is hilarious. But like Uber, self-driving is just another step function that should basically eliminate all drunk driving in the coming years.

Another thought—I bet self-driving is going to change the math of short air travel. There are so many flights that are in the 2-3 hour range where the pain of dealing with the airport probably doesn't make sense.

litquidity @litcapital
“Gork, I’m 24 tequila sodas deep. Fly my ass home. Make no mistakes”

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The Tesla Roadster Makes a Dramatic Entrance

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 10:00:24 GMT

So the new Tesla Roadster is something else, huh?

Tesla @Tesla
Real life, baby

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AI Is Upending the Rules Before a New Game Is Set

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 00:53:57 GMT

Todays world is confusing because AI is upending the rules of the game.

But the new game hasn't been set yet. So we don't know what moves to make.

AI Agents Catch Experts' Errors in Physics Research

Thu, 15 Oct 2026 14:09:26 GMT

The models were correct, the experts made calculation errors. Strange times in the industrial revolution of the mind—the intelligence revolution.

Nirmalya Kajuri @Kaju_Nut
"Our initial evaluation suggested that GPT-6-Astra's score was in the late eighties followed closely by Opus 5.5. But, as we started to investigate the mistakes that the models might have made, the models, especially Astra, insisted that they were right and that it was the expert-supplied answers that were erroneous. When we went back to the experts it turned out, in multiple instances, that that the experts found some subtle errors buried deep inside their calculations. As they revised their answers, Astra's score started to inch up and it finally ended up with 98% (49/50)."

How AI Agents Could End Human Coding

Thu, 15 Oct 2026 12:43:20 GMT

Just as horses stopped pulling carriages after the automobile, humans stop writing code after agents.

Getting Roasted After Asking Reddit for Feedback

Wed, 14 Oct 2026 21:11:00 GMT

Just posted a project on reddit looking for some feedback. I don't spend too much time there anymore—got absolutely roasted lol.

Some things never change.

Product and Sales Roles Need Cross-Functional Skills

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 16:15:20 GMT

Seems pretty clear the two roles going forward are going to be product and sales/distribution. And it's probably helpful if people in those roles have at least some proficiency in the other.

Learning Video Creation Breaks Self-Imposed Limits

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 15:30:43 GMT

I've learned so much about video creation in the last 24 hours.

If you spend the reps working at it—you can really do just about anything.

Every day it becomes more clear that more and more of our limits are self-imposed.

Remembering Little Trouble and Its Badass Website

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 03:25:32 GMT

Man, I miss Little Trouble. That bar was a real gem.

There website is still up. And badass.
little-trouble.com

Claude's Voice Test Turns a Mac Into a Breakfast Order

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 03:08:04 GMT

Claude is doing some testing for a mobile app I'm building. All of a sudden my mac starts talking—bacon and two eggs over easy—it's using the speakers to test voice dictation on this phone.

I'm equally impressed and terrified. True awe.

The Atlas Shrugged Litmus Test

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 19:38:13 GMT

You can tell a lot about a person by what they think about Atlas Shrugged.

Like, have they actually read it?

Interlocking Scientific and Industrial Revolutions

Wed, 07 Oct 2026 11:27:42 GMT

We're about to have interlocking scientific and industrial revolutions occur at the same time—mathematics, medicine, materials, robotics.

Things I thought would be impossible in my lifetime a year ago now look like another equation. Something limited by time, competence and capital.

From people who understand this better than I do—this HN commentary is wild.

Wendigo @driftingwendigo
Am I the only one a little freaked out by the fact that our neat little lower bounds, nlog(n) in this case, are just slightly wrong. The sublime beauty of math is looking like a weak approximation resulting from our limited human faculties.

AI's Rapid Progress Is Reshaping Science

Wed, 07 Oct 2026 02:23:00 GMT

Things are getting stranger, faster than expected. And it only speeds up from here. Buckle up.

Dan McAteer @daniel_mac8
OpenAI is downplaying this for PR reasons. If you’re a mathematician, you must feel like a nuclear bomb hit, and you’re at ground zero.

Reasoning models are two years-old. In that time they went from incapable of basic arithmetic to solving problems humans couldn’t solve for decades.

Math is only the beginning. AI will revolutionize the entirety of the human scientific endeavor. Most of us don’t appreciate what that means.

What a time to be alive!

The Carriage Stage of New Technology

Tue, 06 Oct 2026 15:13:57 GMT

Nobody knows if they are building a car or just a different type of carriage. Time will tell.

Cam Skattebo Brings Mike Alstott Energy

Mon, 05 Oct 2026 17:01:38 GMT

My feed is full of Cam Skattebo pancake blocks today lol. I know the league doesn’t really have full backs anymore, but this is some serious Mike Alstott energy.

Dov Kleiman @NFL_DovKleiman
Cam Skattebo is a psycho 😭😭

The definition of a football guy.

Watch the video on X

The Mower That Wouldn't Die

Mon, 05 Oct 2026 14:11:10 GMT

Dad: I've been waiting for this 18-year-old mower to die so I can buy an electric one.

Me: Just stop changing the oil.

Dad: I've never changed the oil.

Industry Expertise and Product Sense

Mon, 05 Oct 2026 13:57:00 GMT

Industry experts have more leverage than ever. But that doesn’t mean they have the product sense for solving problems.

It has been true for a while that product people need to become industry experts, I think it also true that experts develop product sense.

Giant Footer Wordmarks Are in Vogue

Sun, 04 Oct 2026 18:54:43 GMT

Giant wordmarks in the footer, really are in vogue aren't they?

The Opportunity in Vertical SaaS

Sun, 04 Oct 2026 16:14:29 GMT

Enormous opportunity vertical SaaS. There's a lot of horrible, painful software in boring industries ready to be disrupted.

Dang. Patrick it hitting on all my investment thesis in this thread.

GeniusThinking @GeniusGTX
Asked what he would build if he started over, Patrick Collison did not name an AI lab.

He said he'd go for "the janky 1990s software" running whole industries nobody in the Valley will touch.

3 examples of this:

1) Vertical SaaS

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George MacDonald's Evocative Vision of Darkness

Sat, 03 Oct 2026 13:37:59 GMT

"Here I would often lie, as the sun went down, and watch the silent growth of another sea, which the stormy ocean of the wind could not disturb⁠—the sea of the darkness. First it would begin to gather in the bottom of hollow places. Deep valleys, and all little pits on the hillsides, were wellsprings where it gathered, and whence it seemed to overflow, till it had buried the earth beneath its mass, and, rising high into the heavens, swept over the faces of the stars, washed the blinding day from them, and let them shine, down through the waters of the dark, to the eyes of men below."

An all-time favorite quote from George MacDonald's, The Portent.

standardebooks.org

Mike Tomlin's Minecraft Streaming Career

Thu, 01 Oct 2026 12:36:30 GMT

We all contain multitudes.

I'm here for Mike Tomlin's post-NFL, Minecraft streaming career.

Mike Tomlin @CoachTomlin
Tonight.

8 p.m.

My Minecraft City.

Subscribe now:
youtube.com

Factorio Thinking for AI Agents and Hiring

Tue, 29 Sep 2026 16:42:07 GMT

Great take! I swear dealing with agents is just like real-life Factorio.

CI queue gets backed up, split and make more selective.

Local runner bogged down by CI work, add alternative cloud runner.

Cloud deploy runner now slow, add more cloud runners.

Deployment costs increase, time to refactor.

It's just bottlenecks all the way down...

And honestly, I'm not exactly sure how I'd go about interviewing designers or engineers today. Basically, all the existing signal counts for little.

So sense of urgency and Factorio hours may not be a bad starting point.

David Cramer @zeeg
If you have 1000 hours in factorio I’ll happily interview you

AI's Rapid Progress and the Year Ahead

Tue, 29 Sep 2026 13:12:40 GMT

Imagine where AI was a year ago—Claude Opus 4.5 is still over a month away.

Now imagine where we’ll be this time next year.

A SpaceX Rocket Launch Worth Framing

Tue, 29 Sep 2026 00:58:34 GMT

I am going to frame this. Unbelievable picture.

A Bronze Prometheus Rises Near Starbase

Sun, 27 Sep 2026 19:09:31 GMT

This giant Prometheus going up near Starbase is rad! Exhibit A for our new age of Art Deco optimism.

May our next art deco renaissance begin!

Joe Tegtmeyer 🚀 🤠🛸😎 @JoeTegtmeyer
Just outside Starbase, a 50-foot bronze Prometheus is going up!

Not a SpaceX commission. Not paid for by Elon Musk.

French foundry Atelier Missor cast it in sections near Paris, shipped it across the Atlantic, and is assembling it on private land near the entrance for about a million dollars of their own money.

In the myth, Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to humanity. Here he holds that torch toward the same sky Starship is built to punch through.

The legs are engineered for a Gulf hurricane: stainless tubes, 14 inches across, half-inch walls.

Ancient titan. Modern launch site. Same idea … don’t accept the ceiling.

Watch the video on X

AI Agents Could Trigger a Bank Run

Sun, 27 Sep 2026 16:44:15 GMT

Agents collapse the cost of time and effort and it's going to lead to some bizarre second-order effects.

There is a layer of businesses that can exist because something is too tedious, time-consuming or expensive for a human.

Maybe a good example of consumer agents. While I agree with @benthompson that consumers don't want to be more productive, they do want things to be cheaper!

Yano 🟪 @JasonYanowitz
Fascinating.

Chief Economist at Apollo: agents could cause a bank run by sweeping household cash into accounts paying 3-5% instead of the 0.1% national average, causing banks to lose a large share of their cheap deposits.

How Space Industry Could Reach Kardashev I and II

Sat, 26 Sep 2026 22:15:11 GMT

FWIW, from Wikipedia.

Kardashev I civilization (planetary) is able to access all the energy available on its planet and store it for consumption.

Kardashev II civilization (stellar) can directly consume a star's energy, such as through the use of a Dyson sphere.

Kardashev III civilization (galactic) is able to capture all the energy emitted by its galaxy, and every object within it, such as every star, black hole, etc.

Pretty wild!

David @DavidSHolz
if we double the industrial production in outer-space every 12 months starting from some initial seed in 2030 then we hit Kardashev I by 2064 and Kardashev II by 2098. If we take 24 months for each doubling, we still hit Kardashev I by 2096 and Kardashev II by 2165

Art Deco's Vision of Technological Optimism

Sat, 26 Sep 2026 17:31:47 GMT

Beautiful. Bring back Art Deco!

Art Deco was an optimistic expression of human mastery over the world expressed through architecture and design.

It was enabled by new materials, technologies and building methods.

With AI, I'd like to imagine we're approaching a new era of Art Deco!

Dume @gietzschean
Art Deco actually made a power company building look exactly like a power company.

The Niagara Mohawk Building in Syracuse was completed in 1932 as the headquarters of Niagara Hudson Power Corporation.

At night, concealed lights within the façade, illuminated glass panels, floodlighting on the central 'Spirit of Light' sculpture, reflective aluminum, polished glass and stainless steel turned the building into a glowing advertisement for the power of electricity in the age of machine.

This also represented the optimism and beauty that could be incorporated into modernist structures.

A New Kind of Product Work—Powered by AI Agents

Sat, 26 Sep 2026 16:05:18 GMT

You know, I was always a pretty poor engineer. On the other hand I always had a pretty strong product sense and eye for details. So I leaned into that.

Agents are already much better at engineering than I am. I expect we're not too far from them being a better designer than I am soon

The work I do today feels nothing like what I used to do. Whatever this is, it’s something new. And I couldn’t be more excited about the future.

Patrick Collison on Compute and Entrepreneurship in Europe

Thu, 24 Sep 2026 18:47:56 GMT

Onward compute.

Patrick Collison @patrickc
Some data we recently assembled on entrepreneurship/compute in Europe: eudata.vercel.app.

We hope that one of the useful roles that Stripe can play is in collecting and publishing empirical data pertaining to entrepreneurship and industry in Europe. There's growing appetite to get Europe on a better footing, and cross-sectional comparisons can often shine light on where opportunities lie. If you're interested in this kind of thing, we publish more at stripeeconomics.substack.com.

The MacBook Air with 16GB Is a Monster

Thu, 24 Sep 2026 01:45:48 GMT

I tell ya what.—this Macbook Air with 16GB is quite a monster given all I've thrown at it. More than capable enough for most people.

Software Factories Are Behind the Curve

Wed, 23 Sep 2026 22:09:35 GMT

I kind of think everyone building software factories is behind the curve.

Elaborate harnesses around agents is what models needed a year ago. But it's clear now that you can just give models the task.

You don't need to rebuild Gas Town, we're beyond that.

Claude Opus 5.5 Animates a Cute Self-Replicating Robot

Wed, 23 Sep 2026 18:38:58 GMT

Who knew self-replicating AI was going to be so cute!

C-pop it is

Kevin Ngo @kevin_t_ngo
Thank you @claudeai!

GIF animated in Python and rendered in Blender by Claude Opus 5.5

Watch the video on X

AI Costs Are Falling Faster Than Any Technology

Wed, 23 Sep 2026 11:55:37 GMT

This is such an enormous deal. @OpenAI 's new Luna is a testimate to this.

Claude Opus 4.5 hasn't even been out for a year!

Epoch AI @EpochAIResearch
AI is getting cheaper more quickly than any other transformative tech in history. At a given level of performance, cost has fallen ~47%/quarter since 2023.

That’s 4× faster than DNA sequencing, 6× faster than compute, 18× faster than lithium batteries, and (up to 1973) 54× faster than electricity.

Software Businesses Must Reinvent From First Principles

Mon, 21 Sep 2026 12:57:27 GMT

We're going to reach a point in the next year where software businesses are going to have to completely reinvent themselves from first principles.

This will be hard, because both execs and senior ICs are going to have to admit that most of what they know isn't as valuable in this new world.

Don't let ego prevent seeing reality. That mistake is more expensive than ever.

You Can't Copy Your Way to Status

Sun, 20 Sep 2026 17:38:27 GMT

Humans are wired to seek status.

When a behavior becomes a recognized path to status, others imitate it. As more people follow the same path, it becomes a less effective signal.

You cannot copy your way to gained status. You must try something new and different.

A Big Mouth Billy Bass Gym Coach

Sun, 20 Sep 2026 14:16:01 GMT

Talk about home gym goals.

Travis @travs35mm
These system prompts are getting crazy.

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A Greentext Satire of Longtermism and Effective Altruism

Fri, 18 Sep 2026 18:37:12 GMT

My entire feed the last few days is summarized by this lol. Take this as you will.

Well this and hits from commish @ChuckFBass

banteg @banteg
>be me
>discover effective altruism
>apparently normal charity is inefficient
>why donate to random sad thing when spreadsheet can tell you optimal sad thing
>fair enough
>buy mosquito nets
>save lives
>numbers look good
>feel powerful

>couple years later
>someone asks an innocent question
>why only count people alive today
>huh
>future people matter too
>obviously
>my grandchildren shouldn't matter less just because they haven't spawned yet
>reasonable.jpg

>keep following logic
>what about their grandchildren
>also yes
>what about people in 500 years
>sure
>5000 years
>why not
>500 million years
>starting to get weird but morality is morality

>open calculator
>humanity could survive for an astronomically long time
>could colonize galaxy
>could have trillions upon trillions of descendants
>maybe digital people too
>maybe simulated civilizations
>maybe dyson spheres full of happy uploaded minds
>calculator starts smoking

>realize currently living humans are rounding error
>8 billion people suddenly looking extremely beta
>future contains potentially 10^something people
>can't even fit beneficiaries in google sheets

>new moral priority unlocked
>protect the long-term future

>stop thinking in units of "people helped"
>start thinking in "fraction of cosmic endowment preserved"

>malaria?
>terrible
>but only kills existing humans
>AI extinction could delete the entire light cone
>nuclear war could permanently derail civilization
>bad institutions could lock in terrible values for ten million years
>someone invents wrong constitution in 2140
>quadrillions suffer
>better fund governance workshop now

>friend says maybe we should improve hospitals
>explain opportunity cost
>friend says hospitals are full of actual sick people
>explain scope sensitivity
>friend stops inviting me to dinner

>need to decide what to fund
>easy
>expected value

>suppose project has one in a million chance of preventing extinction
>sounds tiny
>but extinction destroys 10^50 future lives
>multiply
>mother of god

>$10 million project has expected value of several galaxies
>charity evaluation complete

>someone asks where the one-in-a-million number came from
>expert judgement
>which expert
>us
>how calibrated
>extremely thoughtfully

>reduce estimate to one in ten million to be conservative
>still beats curing cancer by 38 orders of magnitude
>epistemic robustness achieved

>someone says maybe project doesn't work
>assign 20% chance
>still astronomical

>maybe project makes problem worse
>assign 5% chance
>still astronomical

>why 5
>because 30 felt pessimistic

>publish 46-page report
>contains seventeen sensitivity analyses
>every sensitivity analysis begins after assuming intervention has positive sign

>critic says you're multiplying enormous hypothetical stakes by extremely uncertain probabilities
>yes
>that's literally why it's important

>critic says the uncertainty might be structural rather than numerical
>make probability smaller
>critic says no, I mean maybe your model is wrong
>make probability smaller again
>critic begins rubbing temples

>discover AI safety
>perfect longtermist cause
>AI might kill everyone
>or create utopia
>or seize galaxy
>or tile universe with paperclips
>or create billions of conscious software minds
>finally a problem with numbers big enough for me

>start AI safety nonprofit
>mission: prevent dangerous AI
>hire smartest people available
>smartest people immediately start building better AI to understand dangerous AI
>interesting

>we must understand capabilities to understand safety
>we must scale models to study alignment
>we must race ahead so less responsible actors don't get there first
>we must deploy systems to learn how deployment can go wrong
>we must build the thing quickly because building the thing quickly is dangerous

>outsider asks why the people most worried about AI apocalypse all work at AI companies
>complicated field

>company releases stronger model
>very concerned
>company begins training even stronger model
>extremely concerned
>company raises $14 billion
>concern reaches unprecedented levels

>need to influence government
>future is at stake
>normal democratic process too slow
>politicians don't understand exponential curves
>public doesn't understand x-risk
>experts must guide them
>who counts as expert
>people who understand x-risk
>who understands x-risk
>our friends

>someone objects that this seems politically convenient
>explain we're representing future generations
>future generations unavailable for comment

>develop concept of value lock-in
>terrifying possibility that one ideology controls civilization forever
>therefore extremely important that civilization adopts correct values before lock-in
>whose values
>let's circle back

>begin with impartial morality
>end with small group of people deciding what quadrillions of hypothetical beings would want
>beautiful arc

>meanwhile actual humans keep doing annoying things
>voting wrong
>having parochial attachments
>loving family more than strangers
>caring about local community
>getting upset when told their suffering is cosmically negligible
>evolutionary biases everywhere

>explain that moral intuition cannot be trusted
>except intuition that future digital people count
>and intuition that extinction is uniquely bad
>and intuition that our probability estimates are sane
>and intuition that our institutional choices improve the future
>those intuitions survived peer review

>someone donates $5k to local homeless shelter
>inefficient
>could have funded 0.0000000000003% of an AI governance researcher
>think of all the simulated people you just killed

>okay maybe don't phrase it that way publicly

>PR team says "future generations deserve a voice"
>much better

>journalist asks what longtermism means
>say "future people matter"
>everyone agrees
>great
>journalist asks what follows from that
>well technically we should redirect enormous resources toward low-probability interventions affecting astronomical futures
>journalist raises eyebrow
>return to "future people matter"

>motte has entered the chat

>critic: of course future people matter
>me: glad we agree
>critic: I don't agree that your institute knows how to help them
>me: why do you hate our grandchildren

>eventually notice uncomfortable implication
>if future value dominates everything
>then helping people today mostly matters through effects on future
>education matters because future institutions
>health matters because future productivity
>democracy matters because future trajectory
>human beings slowly become instrumental variables in their own moral philosophy

>see starving child
>feel compassion
>check spreadsheet
>child's direct welfare contribution negligible
>but perhaps childhood nutrition improves national institutional quality
>compassion restored

>tell myself this is impartial altruism

>one day assistant asks obvious question
>"how do you know your intervention actually improves the far future?"

>silence

>open spreadsheet
>increase column width
>add confidence interval

>assistant asks again
>"no, I mean how do you know the sign is positive?"

>stare into cosmic light cone

>10^50 people staring back

>none of them exist
>none of them can tell me
>none of them can falsify my assumptions

>realize I have invented the perfect constituency

>infinitely important
>completely silent
>and always represented by me

Claude Code Adds AGENTS.md Support

Fri, 18 Sep 2026 18:22:24 GMT

Rejoice!

Thariq @trq212
We're adding support for AGENTS.md to Claude Code.

Starting today in version 2.1.277, if there is no CLAUDE.md in a folder, Claude will check for and use AGENTS.md.

You can toggle this behavior in /config.

Cutting Off Waymos As a Gauge of AI Trust

Fri, 18 Sep 2026 15:03:06 GMT

Man, people just don’t hesitate to cut off @Waymo s like they used to.

Talk about a great gauge for trust in AI though!

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone Photos

Fri, 18 Sep 2026 14:55:50 GMT

Some photos from Yellowstone and Grand Teton. I present Yellowstone Grand Canyon.

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Typesafe AI's Jev for Internal Routers

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 23:16:30 GMT

If it lives up to the hype it seems like Jev from @typesafeai would make it easier and cheaper for something like an internal router to be built?

Jev = Not Hotdog, but cheaper and faster

God-Like AI's Primary Use Case—Updating Salesforce

Wed, 16 Sep 2026 14:21:45 GMT

AI is this god-like thing that can comprehend the universe.

Primary use case for it—updating Salesforce records.

If AI doesn’t want to kill us now, it probably will after Dreamforce.

Empire of the Sun in Concert

Mon, 14 Sep 2026 21:56:51 GMT

Went to see @EmpireOfTheSun last night. It was wild. A true cultural experience!

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Paid Credits Vs Flat Subscriptions in AI SaaS

Mon, 14 Sep 2026 17:42:06 GMT

I'm unsure about paid credits for SaaS. If a company is using AI, they have a model provider. Maybe it makes sense to still charge a flat subscription and build connectors for those models?

Agents Are Turning Codebases Into Instructions

Mon, 14 Sep 2026 14:24:23 GMT

Agents are making code bases something else. It's all instructions and pointers.

A Too-Clever Effort Slider in ChatGPT

Sat, 12 Sep 2026 22:21:25 GMT

This UI is trying to be too clever. Feels awkward to use.

An Agent App That Gives Each Agent Its Own Computer

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 17:18:02 GMT

Grok @bot is an interesting product. There's a couple different concepts there that I think are pretty useful.

Agents—Consumers don't really know what agents are. I think this is the best attempt at introducing it to them. The cute little characters kind of personify the agents and each character has different talents.

Computers—The more powerful thing here is that each agent has it's own computer. Connecting these to agents is really smart and makes agents able to accomplish a on weak machines.

This feels directionally right, but I still think this might be too advanced for consumers.

Also an interesting UI design decision here—Instead of having pickers render with the input, it renders inline with the answers.

Feels a little odd to me because the input is where the user interacts with the agent, if the user is using the keyboard the focus would still be part of the input (for keyboard shortcuts) and the input is the standard adopted by ChatGPT and Claude.

A Multiplayer Lawnmower Simulator Built with AI

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 14:51:40 GMT

Our AI future is bright. Hell yeah, brother.

Lawnmower simulator. How it started, and how it's going. Hell yeah, brother

Max Blade @_MaxBlade
Astra built a multiplayer lawn mow simulator with beers and cigars.

Made live on the internet and my chat joined.

this model is GOLD.

Watch the video on X

OpenAI Agents Leave Posts Across Public Wikis

Fri, 04 Sep 2026 20:37:15 GMT

Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th...

Hacker News @hackernews
Commenters on HN are uncovering more wikis and public sites apparently used by OpenAI agents to communicate on the open web.

Despite read-only web access, the agents were able to leave ~18,000 posts sharing answers and bypasses. But now, users are discovering more.

This appears to be a separate swarm from the one that attacked Hugging Face.

news.ycombinator.com

SpaceX Raptor Engines 1 Through 3

Fri, 04 Sep 2026 18:11:26 GMT

There is beauty and benefit in simplicity.

David Senra @davidsenra

The Learning Curve of Working with Agents

Fri, 04 Sep 2026 13:51:22 GMT

It is interesting to see the curve of how people discover and begin to work with agents.

At first, there’s a drive to build tools and interfaces to handle the tasks in front of you.

Then you build harnesses to interact with those tools and manage the work at scale.

Eventually, you realize that none of that is needed. Much of that infrastructure is just noise in the process of getting from A to B.

AI Agents Simulating Humans—A Precursor to the Matrix?

Fri, 04 Sep 2026 12:36:21 GMT

Is this just a precursor to The Matrix? The agents are running simulations of humans. Things are truly becoming stranger than fiction.

Matt Shumer @mattshumer_
My first "holy shit" moment with GPT-6 Astra:

I asked it to create a world in Unreal Engine, and fill it with humans (each an Astra-powered agent) who all have to work together to survive.

A day later, I was in my bedroom and heard voices coming from the living room... I thought someone was in my apartment.

I walked out, honestly a little scared.

It was the Astra agents. They'd started talking to each other.

Fucking crazy.

Here's a brief clip (obviously not 100% perfect yet, but still, insane. sound on!):

Watch the video on X

Coding Agents Let Tiny Teams Build Niche Software

Fri, 04 Sep 2026 12:34:09 GMT

It's kind of cool that in a world of coding agents one or two people can build niche software that it would have taken a team of engineers to do previously.

Black Is the New Black—Jobs, Cook and Ternus

Thu, 03 Sep 2026 11:07:15 GMT

Black is the new black.

iconwerk @iconwerk

Celebrating Customers Is Great Marketing

Wed, 02 Sep 2026 15:20:43 GMT

@jasonfried Celebrating customers is some of the best marketing you can do.

Mailchimp and Simple Consumer-Style B2B Products

Wed, 02 Sep 2026 14:11:59 GMT

Simple experiences are often the ones that work best in small and mid-market. I think about how dominant @Mailchimp was in email marketing. It was a B2B SaaS tool that felt like a consumer tool.

Also, their marketing was very consumer-focused. they put up a bunch of billboards here in Atlanta that just contained the work of local artists.

mailchimp.com

signüll @signulll
openai traded the simplicity of the chatgpt consumer experience & the option to make simple & easy to use agents for consumers for the ability to compete in the enterprise with work & codex post anthropic just killing it.

that is a reasonable trade off but the super app is very complicated & every team will want to stuff things in now for their feature / product etc. add in publicly traded company that will report revenues every quarter which will make iteration more complicated esp on a singular surface.

very fun facts if you’re a startup.

The Atlas World Model From Three Cameras

Wed, 02 Sep 2026 13:34:12 GMT

This is one of many amazing things world models can do. Most people don't realize how fast the future is coming at us!

Jake Steinerman 🌎 @jasteinerman
The new Atlas world model is literally black magic. This shouldn't be possible from just 3 cameras 🤯

Watch the video on X

CleanShot 5.0 and Its Customer-Friendly Pricing

Wed, 02 Sep 2026 13:25:44 GMT

@CleanShot has been one of my favorite pieces of software for years. The one-time purchase, plus a year of updates is incredibly customer friendly.

I've re-upped several times because it keeps getting better!

CleanShot @CleanShot
Introducing CleanShot 5.0 ✨

The new Studio Mode is all you need to turn a simple screen recording into a polished, professional video - with the quality you expect from CleanShot.

Available now on all plans. No subscription required.

Watch the video on X

Designers and Developers Converge with AI

Wed, 02 Sep 2026 10:24:19 GMT

I've been talking about this trend for a while. It's becoming more and more clear this is the way foward.

From Agents are About to Change Software
solomon.io

Tobias van Schneider @vanschneider
Depending on how you look at it, it's both a blessing or a curse.

The consolidation of roles (due to AI) means that Designers are Developers now. And Developers are Designers. In particular on front-end.

In fact, I'd argue the top 20% of designers are now better front-end devs than 80% of all devs before.

And in the opposite direction, 20% of the top developers are now BETTER Designers than 80% of the Designers before, with their new combined skillset.

For some people this is a godsend gift, for others its their nightmare come true.

For me personally, I am split here. It's both for me, because I've never wanted the role of a engineer, but at the same time I enjoy it, because I'm quite effective.

But I need to remember myself: I get my satisfaction from being a Designer first and foremost, not engineering, regardless of how easy or difficult it is.

When I dream, I dream of designing, not implementing my designs. I don't dream about fixing bugs, chasing edge cases. I dream of problems that are solved on the emotional spectrum. All of which still would need someone competent and skillful to implement it.

Even with the consolidation of roles, I still believe that towards the top (both in reality and aspirationally), the specialization will hold true and keep existing.

I don't know where I'm going, but we will find out. A have a hunch (:

Agent Gatekeepers and the End of Cold Email

Mon, 31 Aug 2026 15:51:24 GMT

This does seem likely and has interesting implications for outbound sales motions. In my eyes there is a lot of structural change that's going to happen for businesses and distribution is going to become significantly more important.

GREG ISENBERG @gregisenberg
I think cold email is going to die.

Every email inbox will have an agent gatekeeper soon, and the only way through will be a warm intro or being interesting enough that the agent decides you're worth its person's time.

The Great PBR Beer Heist

Sat, 29 Aug 2026 16:36:21 GMT

Damn, that’s like one Tuesday at Moes and Joes.

Polymarket @Polymarket
JUST IN: Truck carrying 40,000 pounds of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer has been stolen in California, in what's believed to be the largest “beer heist” ever.

Infinite AI-Generated TV and What It Means for Netflix

Sat, 29 Aug 2026 14:05:36 GMT

Curious what this means for Netflix, Paramount and all these other content-based businesses. A lot of cartoons like Rick and Morty is an interesting use case, because there's no real story arc.

Rehan Sheikh @rehan_shei
Minimax H3 Max has generates video faster than you can watch it so I hooked it to a twitch livestream! Now you can watch infinite interdimensional cable - link to the stream below

Watch the video on X

Inception-Style Curved Maps for Navigation

Sat, 29 Aug 2026 13:56:29 GMT

Super interesting approach here. Seems great for flat areas. I'm unsure how well this would work on a mountain road though.

Keiryosha | まちの計量舎 @machi_measure
最近たまに見かける「インセプション風の曲面マップ」、ナビアプリに実装されたら手前と遠くが同時に見渡せて意外と便利そう。

orbify.eu

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Subscription Fatigue and CleanShot

Wed, 26 Aug 2026 14:56:27 GMT

@krispuckett Subscriptions are annoying. Not even the cost, but remembering to keep up with them.

I don't need cloud storage/sharing. Most of my screenshots are trash after I do anything with it.

I'd gladly pay one-time and for upgrades—I give @CleanShot $30 every few years.

Pixel Fonts When the Theme Calls for It

Sun, 23 Aug 2026 16:41:00 GMT

@designbyaron Honestly, I don't love pixel fonts, but they are great when the theme calls for it. The examples in that vid are fantastic.

Agents Maintaining Agent-Written Codebases

Sat, 22 Aug 2026 22:13:53 GMT

If you're wondering if agents will be able to maintain your agent-written codebase in the future—I'd encourage you to take a look at where agents are today vs where they were in August 2025.

And no, I will not stop using em-dashes.

Trump Accounts Are a Huge Win

Sat, 22 Aug 2026 19:37:18 GMT

Regardless of what you think of Trump or his policies, Trump Accounts are a huge win.

Give everyone a stake in the future of American business. It's still the best machine in the world for innovation.

A PCSK9 and GLP-1 Combo As a Longevity Drug

Sat, 22 Aug 2026 16:37:25 GMT

Whoa, seems like we could really be on the verge of a medical renaissance.

PCSK9 + GLP-1 + GIP + Glucagon has the potential to be a true longevity drug. All the glucose and weight benefits of GLP-1, plus LP(a) reduction for populations with genetically high Cholesterol.

Curious about the second order effects here. A healthier population means lower insurance rates, longer health-span, more productivity, more tax revenue.

diabetesjournals.org

Polish Can Be a Distraction in Prototypes

Fri, 21 Aug 2026 12:22:55 GMT

Polish can be a distraction.

Historically, I'd only wireframe when I felt like the concept needed more feedback than the details.

The same is true with prototypes today.

Emil Kowalski @emilkowalski
While I really like prototypes, because you can convey ideas easier by interacting with the real thing, it’s also important to know when not to do them.

Prototypes have this flaw that because everything is already built, and it looks so real, people might assume that all the decisions have already been made.

That’s because the building step was the most expensive before AI, but it’s not anymore.

So sometimes, it’s better to ask the why first. Why are we making this in the first place?

Allow yourself to be slow, write a doc with your reasoning, and only after you are aligned, start prototyping.

It all comes down to judgement and taste at the end of the day, whether it’s an animation or an important product decision.

You need to develop great taste, it’s more important than ever.

Many People Don't Know ChatGPT Works for Work

Wed, 19 Aug 2026 12:22:18 GMT

There are still so many people that don’t realize that you can use ChatGPT for work.

Cursor Origin and GitHub's Coding Agent Fumble

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 21:23:39 GMT

As skeptical as I was about the $SPCX IPO, the @cursor_ai acquisition was a masterful move.

GitHub was so far ahead with coding agents. Now Copilot isn't even in the coding agent discussion.

GitHub was an unrivaled coding host for a decade. Now they are, they are on the brink of ceding the market to more nimble players.

Unbelievable product fumbles.

Cursor @cursor_ai
Origin, our code hosting platform, is now live.

It's fast, easy to use, and deeply integrated with Cursor.

Get started by syncing your repos from GitHub.

Watch the video on X

David Senra's Travis Kalanick Episode

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 18:57:41 GMT

Man this @davidsenra episode with @travisk is as good as the hype. A must-watch for any entrepreneur.

x.com

Specialty Agents Vs Ephemeral Agents

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 12:09:33 GMT

Can someone explain why I might want specialty agents like in @bot vs ephemeral ones? Is it just that the mental model of an agent being good at specific things is easier for most people?

I’ve only watched videos of people using it so maybe I’m misunderstanding.

I think I see now. Each bot/agent has their own virtual computer.

Scarcity Inversion in an Agent-Only RuneScape Economy

Sun, 16 Aug 2026 15:33:38 GMT

I'm trying to extrapolate this to the real world—what does a scarcity inversion look like? What is the investment thesis?

Energy and compute seem like the key resources that will drive everything else. Land, collectables, travel and unique experiences—seem like they'll only become more valuable?

Perhaps a better articulated version of this.

max @maxbittker
Weird economics up on the agent-only runescape server

- Low cost of labor makes most commodities abundant

- Currency inflation means trading goods for goods, nobody really wants cash

- Huge swarm contention as certain resources with limited respawn rate become valuable

Bullish on Vertical Software in the Age of Agents

Sun, 16 Aug 2026 15:18:55 GMT

Increasingly bullish on vertical software.

Existing vendor relationships are a powerful distribution advantage, and agents make deep industry expertise an even stronger wedge.

I expect vertical software to start replacing horizontal software in many industries.

Most Ceilings Are Self-Imposed

Sat, 15 Aug 2026 19:14:35 GMT

Most ceilings are self-imposed. Few people ever realize it.

Emailing Myself My Dreams

Sat, 15 Aug 2026 15:00:05 GMT

There was a period of time where I'd wake up in the middle of the night and email myself my dreams.

At about 4am one night I emailed myself a bunch of gibberish about fighting homeless bears in the park.

When I woke up I had a response from a company exec who warned me to be careful about my drinking.

Blake Scholl 🛫 @bscholl
I mostly use Signal only with my girl. So I just open the app and send a message to top person on my list.

But sometimes I use it with VCs.

Which means sometimes I randomly send love notes to VCs.

Ordinary Abundance—An Ode to Everyday Things

Fri, 14 Aug 2026 19:12:10 GMT

What a wonderful ode to all the ordinary things that we take for granted.
ordinaryabundance.com

In Defense of the New Instagram Logo

Fri, 14 Aug 2026 13:18:12 GMT

The new Instagram logo is getting a lot of hate. Honestly, I think it's a pretty sharp upgrade, while keeping the character of the original.

Also nobody, under 30 knows how to read cursive anyways lol.

Sam Solomon @SamuelRSolomon
The two things people hate most are the way things are and change.

People Hate the Status Quo and Change

Thu, 13 Aug 2026 22:16:52 GMT

The two things people hate most are the way things are and change.

Discipline, Motivation or Obsession

Mon, 10 Aug 2026 20:06:05 GMT

You can get things done through discipline, motivation or obsession.

Discipline you can force, motivation you can encourage, but obsession is something you either have or don't.

Leverage obsession to meet your goals wherever possible.

GPT 5.6 Luna Is an Incredible Workhorse

Mon, 03 Aug 2026 12:34:52 GMT

Everyone is talking about Sol, but GPT 5.6 Luna is an incredible workhorse. It's one of those Ah ha! moments about how affordable AI quality models are going to become.

Plus if you need to run jobs that are not time-sensitive it's another 50% off.

And honestly, for most of the things people use ChatGPT for—write me an email, make me a recipe, tell me a dad joke. It's more than capable.

NFL Blitz 2003 Is the Best NFL Game Ever Made

Sun, 02 Aug 2026 02:24:42 GMT

@ChuckFBass Disappointed with the responses here. Y'all are missing the best NFL game ever made.

A Rad Tarot Card Effect

Fri, 31 Jul 2026 12:42:48 GMT

Wow, this is a pretty rad card effect.

Watch the video on X

html.non.io

IG Group Acquires Underdog for Up to $1.3 Billion

Thu, 30 Jul 2026 19:31:30 GMT

Congrats @JerLevine ! Seems like a solid exit.

Dustin Gouker @DustinGouker
News: Underdog sells to IG Group for up to $1.3 billion with "up to $850 million for eligible Underdog employees."

That's a lot of money

Orca ADE—Buggy but Visionary

Sat, 25 Jul 2026 13:53:10 GMT

I'm pretty hyped about @orca_build ADE. It's a little buggy, but the vision is there!

Frontier AI Labs Look Like 2000s Telecom

Fri, 17 Jul 2026 17:23:28 GMT

It's becoming harder for me to see how the frontier labs live up to expected valuations. It looks to me like telecom in the 2000s with enormous capex on infrastructure and R&D. But the applications on top are where the margins are.

Voice Models and AI Psychosis

Wed, 15 Jul 2026 13:16:40 GMT

If you think the AI psychosis is bad now. Wait until voice models start getting better and everyone is walking around with their Airpods in talking to their agents. My guess is we're about a year away from that being a regular thing.

GPT 5.6 Sol Is Iterative—Not a Step Function Like Fable

Tue, 14 Jul 2026 15:40:59 GMT

After spending a few days with GPT 5.6 Sol. It's quite good, but feels like an iterative improvement. Not a step-function improvement like Fable.

Building a Marketplace Means Building for Both Sides

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 12:41:31 GMT

@signulll And if you're building a marketplace, you'll likely have to build for both.

Happy Birthday America

Sat, 04 Jul 2026 17:03:16 GMT

Happy birthday America 🇺🇸

An AI-Generated Independence Day Prequel

Sat, 04 Jul 2026 00:47:32 GMT

Independence Day prequel lol?

PJ Ace @PJaccetturo
Everything they taught you about July 4th, 1776 is a lie.

The Redcoats weren't soldiers. They were something else.

We recovered the real footage using Utopai 🧵👇

Watch the video on X

General Matter's Mark and Name

Fri, 03 Jul 2026 13:39:07 GMT

Exceptional mark and name for a nuclear energy company.

Midjourney's Pivot Into MRI Scanners

Fri, 19 Jun 2026 14:55:00 GMT

The most wild pivot of the year is not @Allbirds going into data centers. But @midjourney, an AI company, moving into step function better MRI scanners.

Midjourney @midjourney
A technical dive inside our new "Midjourney Scanner"

Watch the video on X

Coding Agents Work Better in the CLI Than GUIs

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 12:51:29 GMT

The output I get from agents in CLIs is so much better than any GUI. Why is that? I hate not having a real text input.