Weekly Dose of Optimism #179

Curation covering new AI models, biocomputing, autonomous vehicles, and tech trends.

Curated Topics

1. Claude Opus 4.6 + GPT-5.3-Codex — Anthropic and OpenAI drop new flagship models same week; researchers used their own agents to build the models; acceleration feedback loop
2. As Rocks May Think — Eric Jang (1X Technologies VP of AI) traces intellectual history from symbolic logic to reasoning models; predicts inference compute demand will dwarf current data center capacity
3. Mouse Brain Drone — Cortical Labs enters Anduril’s AI Grand Prix with drone controlled by cultured mouse brain cells on $35K CL1 chip
4. Waymo $16B Raise — $126B valuation; 400K+ rides/week across 6 cities; 90% reduction in serious injury crashes; planning 20+ new cities in 2026
5. Contrary Tech Trends Report — AI tools adopted 37% faster than traditional SaaS; US electricity generation projected +35-50% by 2040; coding AI tools each approaching $1B ARR

RDCO-Relevant Items

• Opus 4.6: directly relevant as RDCO’s primary model; agents helping build next-generation models
• Coding AI tools at $1B ARR: validates AI-agent tooling market RDCO operates in
• Inference compute demand thesis: infrastructure implications for data engineering