💡 Musings of the Angry Optimist: "Optimus, please clear the table"

My thoughts, tips, and other tidbits that I believe are suited for a fact-based optimist. This newsletter is for you who are a Premium Supporter at Warp News. Feel free to share it with friends and acquaintances.

➕ 1+1 = a whole lot

Last June, I wrote in an Optimist's Edge article:

Robots that understand and can interact with the surrounding environment will be able to do all physical human labor, which will lead to a dramatic expansion of the world economy.

Last week, two things happened that clearly brought this future closer.

1. ChatGPT can now see, hear, and speak

In the video below, Ryan gets help from ChatGPT adjusting the height of a bicycle saddle.

First he gets instructions, but he is unsure about which part is which and takes a picture, asking if this is the lever?

No, it's not, replies ChatGPT and tells him which tool he needs to loosen it.

Ryan takes out his toolbox and snaps a picture of it, and ChatGPT points out the right tool. (I immediately feel that I will benefit greatly from this!)

The full video is available here.

2. Tesla's robot understands the world around it

Optimus sees its own body and where the limbs are located. This makes it much easier to interact with the outside world.

The weakness of robots is that they find it hard to adapt to constant changes. That's why they struggle with simple tasks like clearing a table.

But if they can understand the world around them, even such tasks become possible.

You can see the entire video here.

➕ 1+1 = a whole lot

Combine this: See + hear + speak + understand its surroundings + interact with it.

Then you have a robot that you can ask to mow the lawn, fetch the newspaper, shovel snow, discuss black holes with, or solve crosswords together.

Mathias Sundin
The Angry Optimist

💡 Tips

💡 Brilliant

Thanks to LED lights, American households now use less energy for lighting than for cooling, or for drying clothes. From Nat Bullard.

💉 Timeline for vaccines

There's an 80-year gap between the smallpox vaccine and the next one. The author of The Rational Optimist (and Premium Supporter), Matt Ridley, has for Warp News written the story behind this fascinating discovery.

💉 Matt Ridley: The unexpected history and miraculous success of vaccines

At a time when the miraculous success of vaccines has transformed the battle against the pandemic it is fitting to recall the general idea, and unexpected history, behind vaccination, writes Matt Ridley, bestselling author of The Rational Optimist and How Innovation Works.

Warp NewsMatt Ridley

📊 Human Progress' new website is awesome

Human Progress has updated its website, and it now has tons of interactive graphs – from over 2700 datasets! – that shows the world's progress.

Mathias Sundin
The Angry Optimist