Unsupervised Learning NO. 522

Hey! Hope you all are doing well!

Tons of content this week!

This RSA was probably the best I’ve had. Or at least that I can remember. I didn’t go to any huge parties, but went to lots of smaller ones. Did like 4 talk/panel things. And mostly just met up with friends and colleagues.

Spent tons of time at the Decibel spot at the Children’s Creative Museum. Best venue of the conference by far. Thanks to Jon and Dan the great content, venue, and for having Clint and Jason and I to speak! Was great seeing Jackie Bow and tons of others there as well.

Takeaways from the floor (I walked ¾ of it and talked to probably 50 vendors) was that most companies are panicked and have no idea what’s going on, but there are more than I thought that had a decent bead on things. I was encouraged to see many companies talking about AI workflows. Unfortunately few were talking about how they’d integrate with the customers’ workflows, but were proposing their own with their own interfaces still. In fairness to them though, most customers don’t have their own yet.

I guess my big takeaway is that few companies seemed to realize that they’re about to become API calls in their customer’s agentic workflow mesh. Hopefully. If they play their cards well. That’s the future of all these services and products. They become API calls in an agnostic, agent-powered backplane that’s thousands of transparent actions and workflows that make up the customer’s business. The AI running their customer’s workflows won’t give two cents about who they are or what they do. They will only care how good it is, how fast it is, and how expensive it is.

I do want to mention that this idea is so deeply burned into my brain at this point that I feel like I am heavily biased by it. If I'm wrong, it's going to be hard for me to detect. So keep that in mind as you consume this analysis.

I don't think I'm wrong, though. : ) We’ll check back in 1-3 years as I expect this language and direction to basically take over all IT and become the core of everyone’s businesses.

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My Dad continues to put out super-based commentary on things in his monthly newsletter.

Anything I do well, I got from my Dad.

And if you’re ever anywhere near Northern California you need to go see him perform. He’s doing gigs all over the region on a regular basis. THIS WEEK’S EPISODE | SUBSCRIBE TO THE NEWSLETTER (scroll down some)

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Put out a few new blog posts! I think these are all key ideas going forward. Recommend all of them: especially the first one.

Y Combinator AI startup gets pwned despite security compliance TECHCRUNCH ARTICLE

China is hiding sleeper cell malware in telecom networks to spy on governments Red Menshen has been embedding kernel-level implants in telecom infrastructure since 2021, using a Linux backdoor called BPFDoor that activates only when it receives specially crafted trigger packets. CHINA-LINKED RED MENSHEN ARTICLE

Iranian hackers leaked FBI Director Patel's personal photos and resume. FBI DIRECTOR EMAIL BREACH

Apple says four years in, nobody using Lockdown Mode has been hacked After nearly four years, Apple claims zero successful spyware attacks against devices with Lockdown Mode enabled, marking a major win against government surveillance tools like Pegasus. APPLE LOCKDOWN SUCCESS

Pentagon is standardizing AI security across all their contractors The Defense Department is creating uniform cybersecurity and data protection standards for every company building AI systems for military use, ending the current patchwork of different security requirements. PENTAGON AI BASELINE ARTICLE

EUDisinfoLab releases comprehensive global disinformation intelligence update. Surface is showing way more of this kind of stuff now. Loving the exposure to stories you don’t hear pretty much anywhere. NOTE: I tend to increase my skepticism based on the intensity of the claim, so I recommend you do the same with these. But they do provide sources for all of them.

EUDISINFOLAB NOVEMBER UPDATE

TSA quietly rolled out touchless passport scanning at major airports TSA PreCheck Touchless ID lets you skip showing your passport to humans at security checkpoints, but you need to opt-in with your airline first and it only works at select locations. TSA TOUCHLESS ID

China's new 5-year AI plan aims for global tech dominance China's latest strategic plan prioritizes AI leadership and cybersecurity control as tools for international influence, potentially reshaping global information flows and digital governance standards. THE GLOBAL IMPLICATIONS OF CHINA'S 5-YEAR PLAN AI AMBITIONS

AI drones might force governments to become police states to survive. A SHAKEUP IS COMING FOR THE NATION-STATE

Global economy chokepoints are everywhere now, not just shipping lanes. THE HILL OPINION

China just detained the Manus AI founders after they sold to Meta for $2 billion Beijing is furious that one of its hottest AI startups relocated to Singapore and sold itself to an American company, so now the founders can't leave China during a "regulatory review." TECHCRUNCH ARTICLE

Iran is making bank as the only oil exporter left in Hormuz. FINANCIAL POST ARTICLE

Japanese soldiers return to Philippines after 81 years. JAPANESE COMBAT TROOPS RETURN

Cracks are spreading through Putin's power structure faster than expected War setbacks and internet shutdowns are exposing real limits to Kremlin control, with protests emerging even in traditionally loyal regions. FOREIGN POLICY ANALYSIS

Russia sends upgraded drones back to Iran for US conflict. LONG WAR JOURNAL ARTICLE

China is paying people to start solo AI companies. CHINA AI STARTUPS ARTICLE

Ukraine sank Russia's newest Arctic patrol ship at Vyborg. ASIA TIMES ARTICLE

Army fast-tracks soldier ideas with new innovation office. NEW ARMY OFFICE STORY

US Army raises enlistment age to 42 and cares less about Cannabis amid recruiting crisis. ARMY RECRUITMENT AGE CHANGE

The AI job market has infinite demand but nobody can fill the roles Nate analyzed hundreds of AI job postings and found 3.2 jobs per qualified candidate, but most applicants lack seven specific skills that separate commodity workers from AI talent who can write their own tickets. NATE'S FULL ANALYSIS | YOUTUBE VIDEO | SPOTIFY PODCAST | APPLE PODCASTS | NATE'S SITE

Anthropic accidentally leaked their most powerful AI model through a data security screwup Fortune discovered draft blog posts in Anthropic's unsecured data cache revealing "Claude Mythos," which the company says poses unprecedented cybersecurity risks and represents a "step change" in AI capabilities. FORTUNE EXCLUSIVE

LLMs Do Not Grade Essays Like Humans LLMS DO NOT GRADE ESSAYS LIKE HUMANS

ARC-AGI-3 leaderboard shows AI reasoning performance under budget. ARC-AGI-3 LEADERBOARD

Your startup is probably dead and you don't even know it yet Steve Blank explains how most founders mistake busy work for real progress—they're building features nobody wants while burning through runway, completely blind to the fact that they never actually validated their core assumptions. YOUR STARTUP IS PROBABLY DEAD

The US didn't actually ban foreign routers, just new approvals The Verge explains what's actually happening with the FCC's router "ban"—you can keep your current router and buy existing models, they're just not approving new foreign ones going forward. THE VERGE EXPLAINER

iPhone's Next Upgrade: Siri Could Soon Run on Gemini, Claude, and More Are we still saying “finally”? Really hope to see this in June, or before. TECHREPUBLIC ARTICLE

Mitchell Hashimoto explains how AI agents completely changed his coding workflow HashiCorp's co-founder now has agents running constantly in the background—when he codes, they plan; when they code, he reviews—and says this "always have an agent working" rule transformed his productivity. THE PRAGMATIC ENGINEER EPISODE

Chrome is about to break RSS feeds for millions of people. First they kill Google Reader and now RSS UI? Please no. DON'T KILL MY PRETTY RSS FEED

Cloudflare bought the Astro web framework company. ASTRO JOINS CLOUDFLARE

MIT's ultrasound wristband controls robotic hands finger by finger. MIT ULTRASOUND WRISTBAND STUDY

A fungal disease is killing millions of trees and there's no way to stop it BBC Future reports on sudden oak death, a pathogen that's devastated California forests and is now spreading across North America, with scientists scrambling to understand how it jumps between species. BBC FUTURE ARTICLE | HACKER NEWS DISCUSSION

AI might actually fix the information environment by putting expert knowledge in everyone's hands Unlike social media which democratized misinformation, LLMs are technocratizing—they consistently deliver expert-aligned, evidence-based information that's more accurate than viral social media content. The issue is agents will be in control, and people control their agents, so if people only want to eat white bread and sugar, that’s what their agents will feed them. HOW AI WILL RESHAPE PUBLIC OPINION

Depression makes you pessimistic, not realistic about life events. PSYPOST ARTICLE

The Base neo-Nazi group is resurging across Europe despite FBI efforts. NYTIMES INVESTIGATION

Five Nights at Epstein's game spreads through US schools WTAH BLOOMBERG ARTICLE

Alex Karp says only two types survive AI job apocalypse Alex Karp thinks the future belongs to skilled trades workers and neurodivergent people—everyone else with college degrees is basically screwed, including philosophy majors like himself. PALANTIR CEO ON AI JOBS

Everyone is a Staff Engineer Now ENGINEER'S CODEX ARTICLE

The source code was the moat but not anymore THE SOURCE CODE WAS THE MOAT

AI product managers need evals instead of traditional PRDs. EVALS ARE THE NEW PRD

Managing thousands of AI agents requires business world models. THE FUTURE OF WORK IS WORLD MODELS

Charlie Munger's framework for why smart people make terrible decisions. FARNAM STREET PODCAST

They can reach me wherever: China using financial tactics to coerce people who flee, says report GUARDIAN ARTICLE

Can I hear a difference between MP3s and uncompressed audio CAN I HEAR A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MP3S AND UNCOMPRESSED AUDIO

How Prediction Markets Scaled to USD 21B in Monthly Volume in 2026 TRM LABS REPORT

I am leaving the AI party after one drink LEAVING THE AI PARTY

Read this post about the most important current AI ideas. Like really really. And especially focus on the first item, and the takeaway at the end.

Acceleration of acceleration.

Things are about to get nuts because of this. They already were, but this changes the speed dramatically.

THE ESSAY