💡 Warp News #314
🌊 The Soviet Union drained the Aral Sea – now it's filling up again. 🍻 GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic reduce risk of substance abuse and addiction. 🦾 Humanoid robots get AI brain and are put to work in car factories.
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Free newsletter with fact-based optimistic news about technology, science, and human progress with the angry optimist, Mathias Sundin. If you are not a subscriber, become one here.
🎵 When tone-deaf people can create music
In my book on AI, I wrote that creativity is unleashed when people who are tone-deaf can create music.
I’m not tone-deaf, but I sing quite off-key, can’t read sheet music, and can’t play any instrument.
Despite that, I can make music — with AI.
Since 2024 I’ve made quite a few songs. Most of them have been mediocre, but as the technology has improved, as I’ve become better at creating, and not least more creative myself, the quality has increased.
Then one day I made a song that I genuinely thought was really good. Good enough that I dared to play it publicly at my book launch. Afterwards, a couple of people even reached out asking how they could get it.
A very surprising development, since I had never once imagined that I would help create music that someone else actually liked.
My idea was to take a famous Swedish poem by Karin Boye, In Movement, (I rörelse in Swedish), as the lyrics, and then experiment until I found a melody, genre, and singing voice that I felt suited it.
The sated day is never held up first.
The greatest day is a day of thirst.
Though goals may give some meaning to our quest,
the road itself is life's most worthy test.
The finest goal: a rest that cannot last,
where fire is lit and bread is broken fast.
In places where you stay but one night long,
your sleep is sound, your dream is full of song.
Arise, arise! The new day calls to you.
Our endless, great adventure starts anew.
The song is called Arise, arise (Bryt upp, bryt upp in Swedish) and is now available on Spotify and many other platforms.
AI has made it much easier to create covers of songs, so instead of only releasing the version I like best, I made six different versions. Jazz, metal, singer-songwriter, and so on. You can find them all in this playlist.
I've also made an English version – Arise, arise – that you can find too on Spotify.
But it doesn’t stop there. The music was made in Suno, and the song is available there as well, so you and others can create your own covers of it.
You’re very welcome to try — and if you make something good, send it to me and I’ll share it on the website and with others in this newsletter. You can find the songs on Suno here.
This week’s text is about this song: 🎹 Can an unmusical, washed-up politician create a hit song? (Probably not, but worth a try)
And if you missed it, last week I also wrote about AI music — though then about how I think it will affect the music industry.
Here is the English version of the song: Arise, arise
And the Swedish version: Bryt upp, bryt upp
Mathias Sundin
The Angry Optimist
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🎹 Can an unmusical, washed-up politician create a hit song? (Probably not, but worth a try)
I’ve made a song based on a famous poem. Make your own version too.
💡 Fact-based optimistic news of the week
🐂 European bison have increased from 60 to 9,000 – now the species expands in Spain
Nine European bison have been released in the Iberian Highlands in Spain as part of an international research study. The number of European bison has increased from just over 2,500 to around 9,000 individuals over the past decade.
🍻 GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic reduce risk of substance abuse and addiction
A large study of more than 600,000 U.S. veterans shows that GLP-1 drugs were associated with a 14 percent lower risk of developing new substance use disorders. Among people with existing substance use disorders, overdoses dropped by 40 percent and substance-related deaths were cut in half.
🚯 Over 25 million kilograms of trash removed from oceans and waterways in 2025
The organization's total amount of collected trash has now surpassed 45 million kilograms. A new program, the 30 Cities Program, will tackle a third of all plastic waste reaching the oceans from the world's most polluted urban areas.
Ukraine builds new power grid with solar, wind and batteries that better withstands Russian attacks
A decentralized power grid with solar, wind and batteries has fewer central points that can be knocked out, unlike the old system with large power plants and centralized transmission lines.
🦾 Humanoid robots get AI brain and are put to work in car factories
Google Gemini AI is being integrated into the humanoid robot Atlas, enabling it to understand its surroundings and handle unfamiliar objects. The robots will soon be tested in Hyundai’s car factories. The goal is to make Gemini a shared operating system for robots, similar to Android in smartphones.
🌊 The Soviet Union drained the Aral Sea – now it's filling up again
The Aral Sea was once the world’s fourth-largest lake. When the Soviet Union diverted two rivers for cotton farming, it shrank rapidly. Now the trend has reversed: the North Aral Sea’s surface has grown by 36% in 20 years, water volume has nearly doubled, and 20 fish species have returned.
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