💡 Premium Supporter recap + fact-based optimistic news
🌾 Lower food prices thanks to record harvests. 🌅 Wind and solar energy surpass coal power in China and the EU. ⚖️ Global inequality decreases.
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🎧 Noise cancellation
On my headphones, I can turn on noise cancellation. Suddenly, all background noise is gone, and I sit there in a tranquil bubble. I turn calm and focused.
That's often how it feels with media. Like a constant, ongoing noise. With Warp News, we try to help reduce this noise, so you're not fooled into thinking the noise is all there is.
Recently, we've done this twice, regarding the alleged AI bubble and the imaginary pipe dream, Northvolt.
In Northvolt's case, the company itself has problems, but this is interpreted as if batteries are a green bubble. For AI, a three-day stock market fall is seen as a sign of a burst AI bubble, and speculations rev up.
I then look behind the headlines, at what's actually going on. That we're in the midst of an energy and transport transition, where batteries are key. That we can control machines with our natural language, making AI accessible to everyone.
These are two massive shifts that can easily be missed if you're distracted by the noise.
Mathias Sundin
The Angry Optimist
🧐 Premium Supporter content
🦾 Keep calm, AI is not a bubble
The stock market went down, panic arose and the pessimists proclaimed in panic: The AI bubble is bursting. That is nonsense.
💡 Musings of the Angry Optimist: Whatever, keep writing in a complicated way, I understand anyway
What Martin Luther and a double unicorn founder can teach us about AI, and the first Swede on Mars.
💡 Fact-based optimistic news of the week
🌞 Solar and wind surpass fossil fuels in EU electricity production
Wind and solar power generated 30% of EU's electricity during the first half of 2024. For the first time, 13 EU countries produced more electricity from wind and solar than from fossil fuels.
🌅 Wind and solar energy surpass coal power in China
China's combined capacity for wind and solar power has for the first time exceeded coal. Solar energy is expected to surpass coal as China's primary energy source by 2026. China has reduced new coal power projects and is focusing on phasing out smaller coal power plants.
🌾 Record harvests lead to lower food prices
Grain prices have fallen to their lowest level in four years. American farmers are expected to harvest record amounts of corn and soybeans. Weather conditions have been favorable in the world's most important agricultural areas.
🍔 Food-from-air company Solar Foods advances in NASA's space food competition
NASA's Deep Space Food Challenge aims to find new ways to provide astronauts with nutrition during long space missions. Solar Foods won the international category in the competition. The company is developing a concept to produce the protein Solein in space.
⚖️ Global inequality decreases both between and within countries
Global inequality has decreased dramatically since the 1980s. Inequality within countries has stopped increasing and has decreased over the last decade. Poverty is decreasing faster than previously estimated, even at higher poverty thresholds.
🎙️ AI talk or master class?
I'm giving a lot of talks and master classes on AI in several different countries. Happy to come to your organization.
Learn more at mathiassundin.org.
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