💡 Warp News #297
🤒 People are becoming less sick. 🐋 Humpback whales more numerous now than before industrial whaling began. 🖥️ Quantum computer demonstrates controlled advantage over supercomputer for the first time.
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0️⃣1️⃣ Cursive binary
Sorry, this newsletter is two days late. For some reason I forgot to schedule it, and didn't notice until now.
The cover of my book is actually a piece of art — and it has a fun backstory.
I got a tip to interview Sasha Stiles for my book, and I’m very glad I did. She’s a poet, artist, and AI pioneer. Even before ChatGPT, she had created an AI trained on her own writing, and together they composed new poetry.
While preparing for the interview, I noticed that she was fascinated by the language of computers: ones and zeros, or binary code.
I agree — it’s fascinating, because it’s both simple and infinite at the same time. All information — text, video, sound, images — can be broken down into just ones and zeros. Yet with those same ones and zeros, you can describe everything in our universe, no matter how complex it is.
“It’s the most fundamental way to encode messages, but at the same time something truly boundless — it can be built into infinitely many meanings and used for so many things,” Stiles says.
She has therefore drawn binary code in her own handwriting. She calls it Cursive Binary. It’s the green, swirling pattern on the cover.
I found it not only beautiful, but also a perfect metaphor for the message of my book — the blending of human and artificial intelligence.
So I was thrilled when Sasha allowed me to use her Cursive Binary on the cover.
🥳 Final guest for the book release: Media entrepreneur Camilla Bergman
Camilla Bergman took Breakit from a media startup to an established and profitable media company. Now she runs her own media venture, Loop, both in Sweden and internationally.
She’ll join me on stage at my book release — alongside SVT’s Alexander Norén and Di Digital’s Ida Hansson Brusewitz. And I can also promise a very exciting secret guest. Without this person, the current AI revolution would not have been possible.
To top it all off, Christian von Essen from Heja framtiden will perform live music.
If you’re in Stockholm on November 5, you’re warmly welcome!
Register here.
Mathias Sundin
The Angry Optimist
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📗 Book excerpt: The beginning of what we can become
But technology itself will not create progress. It depends on where and how technology is used and must go hand in hand with social progress. That's where you come in.
💡 Fact-based optimistic news of the week
🤒 People are becoming less sick
Illness and disability have decreased by 12.6 percent since 2010. Lost years of life due to infectious diseases have decreased by between 58.9 and 79.0 percent.
🐋 Humpback whales more numerous now than before industrial whaling began
The population of humpback whales along Australia's east coast reached over 50,000 individuals in 2024, around 20,000 more than before commercial whaling began in the early 1900s.
🦈 Extinct sharks to make a comeback in the ocean
ReShark is the world's first program to reintroduce sharks into nature, focusing on Indo-Pacific leopard sharks in Raja Ampat, Indonesia. The program uses surplus eggs from aquariums around the world that are transported to locally operated hatcheries in Indonesia.
🏭 Graphene moves from laboratory to factory after 20 years
British company plans pilot facility for production of graphene-based chips. Graphene was discovered at the University of Manchester in 2004 but has not been produced at large scale until now. The material is stronger than steel but lighter than paper.
🖥️ Quantum computer demonstrates controlled advantage over supercomputer for the first time
The Willow chip calculates molecular structures 13,000 times faster than one of the world's fastest supercomputers. The technique can be used to measure distances in molecules and provide more information about chemical structure than today's methods.
🌲 Forest cover increases in several regions – FAO report shows reduced deforestation globally
Deforestation continues to decline, and net forest loss is less than half of what it was in the 1990s. Net loss of forest has decreased by 61 percent since the 1990s.
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