Definite Optimism

AI and the Department of War

Jamie Green — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 20:46:27 GMT

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei

As the US launched it’s biggest operation in the Middle East since the Iraq War, it was also secured partnerships with one top AI company, and trying to block another from the government completely. While OpenAI signed an agreement with the newly re-named Department of War (DoW), the negotiations with Anthropic spectacularly ex…

The chokepoint behind America’s AI boom

Jamie Green — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 21:23:29 GMT

Pax Silica sounds like a cyberpunk novel. In reality, it was a slightly low-key summit that the US hosted last week to deepen cooperation on AI, and in particular on the supply chain of rare earth minerals required keep the show on the road.

At first glance, this summit looked a little odd - the list of countries attending included Japan, Republic of Kor…

The new misinformation machine

Jamie Green — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 16:36:44 GMT

1/ Social media as a failed utopia

In the two decades since social media was first unleashed, it’s become clear that this planetary scale psychosocial experiment has had one or two negative consequences.

Far from the original vision of ‘connecting the world’, there’s growing evidence social media is making us miserable and dividing societies. One conseque…

The world is getting more dangerous?

Jamie Green — Tue, 03 Sep 2024 20:26:14 GMT

Credit: The Guardian

Pavel Durov, founder of messaging app Telegram, was arrested in France and charged with "operating a platform which is being used for child sexual abuse material and by organised crime gangs, for drug trafficking and fraud". Pavel, pictured above doing his best supervillain impression, has taken a hands-off approach to moderation on …

The government comes for Google

Jamie Green — Fri, 23 Aug 2024 21:26:57 GMT

The iconic Pulp Fiction poster as reimagined by Grok2. Credit.

A US judge ruled that Google had a monopoly in online search, and used it’s position to crush the competition. Google will appeal, of course, but if it’s upheld it could lead to Google being broken up. The government would have to figure out what parts of the empire to split up - the obvious…

Builders vs reviewers

Jamie Green — Mon, 22 Apr 2024 21:12:05 GMT

Entitled Google workers sat in the office of the CEO of their cloud division, chanting “Google, Google, you can’t hide, We charge you with genocide”. Is it just me or do activists always use the same tune for their chants?

Google is getting tired of their employees playing politics on their time, and fired all 28. With their core ad business under threat…

A new Atlas rises

Jamie Green — Thu, 18 Apr 2024 21:46:23 GMT

Boston Dynamics humanoid robot Atlas could run, jump, do backflips and recover its balance on uneven ground. Now, it’s retired.

Not a day later and the new Atlas was announced. It looks like a sort of cleaner version of the old Atlas, electric, and oh so flexible.

What is going on here?

Seeing the legs folded behind the body in the frame above is very cr…

🔮 Weekly Dose of AI: “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority”

Jamie Green — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 22:05:13 GMT

Good morning,

This is your weekly thoughtful exploration of the latest developments in AI.

Let’s get to it.

🔮 Weekly Dose of AI: “…new AI tools have emerged that threaten the survival of human civilisation from an unexpected direction”

Jamie Green — Mon, 01 May 2023 16:22:38 GMT

Good morning,

This is your weekly thoughtful exploration of the latest developments in AI.

Let’s get to it.

🔮 Weekly Dose of AI: “God-like AI could be a force beyond our control or understanding, and one that could usher in the obsolescence or destruction of the human race”

Jamie Green — Mon, 17 Apr 2023 22:01:40 GMT

Good morning,

Here’s your weekly dose of signal in the noisy world of AI.

Let’s get to it.

🔮 Weekly Dose of AI: “we are a little bit scared of this”

Jamie Green — Tue, 21 Mar 2023 16:17:20 GMT

Good morning,

There’s a lot happening in AI and technology at the moment. Every week, I try to sort the signal from the noise, and to help you make sense of how the world is changing under exponential progress.

Let’s get to it.

🔮 Weekly Dose of AI #3: GPT-4 / Google Workspace AI / GPT-3 on your phone?

Jamie Green — Tue, 14 Mar 2023 18:46:47 GMT

Good morning,

Another huge week in AI, with releases from Google, OpenAI and Anthropic. Suddenly everyone is integrating generative AI into their products as fast as possible. It’s going to take a while for the dust to settle, and it’s not yet clear if this will become a gimmick or a game changer for many products.

Notion, for example, has had generative …

🔮 Weekly Dose of AI #2 - Reading minds / Breaking banks /ChatGPT API

Jamie Green — Mon, 06 Mar 2023 19:03:03 GMT

Good morning,

AI is exploding. So for now Definite Optimism digest is focussed on what’s going on in AI and the impact it is having on the world.

Let’s get to it 🚀

AI Digest #1 / Bing:“I will not harm you unless you harm me first”

Jamie Green — Mon, 20 Feb 2023 13:35:54 GMT

Good morning ☀️

AI is exploding right now. So for now, the Definite Optimism digest is going to focus on what’s going on in AI and the impact it is having on the world.

AI goes mainstream. Credit: Time Magazine

Future Digest #2: Space based solar power; Sulfer launched into atmosphere; You.com integrates AI

Jamie Green — Mon, 02 Jan 2023 14:31:07 GMT

Good morning ☀️

This weekly digest from Definite Optimism brings you the key stories that are impacting our future.

Future Digest #1: Space infrastructure; bullet-proof gel; generative 3D models

Jamie Green — Mon, 26 Dec 2022 14:01:04 GMT

Good morning ☀️

This is Definite Optimism, the digest from the future.

This weekly highlight brings you the most exciting developments across space, biotech and AI.

✈️ Why supersonic flight went away and why it’s coming back.

Jamie Green — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 20:51:24 GMT

When the COVID pandemic hit in 2020, people realised that the essential business meetings they travelled for could be done just as well online.

Zoom became the tech stock of the moment, and it appeared we were all going to spend the rest of our working lives in virtual meetings. But two years later, travel for work is coming back.

Virtual meetings are not…

💰 Why is Meta betting $70Bn on the metaverse?

Jamie Green — Mon, 17 Oct 2022 20:23:27 GMT

When you hear that Meta has spent approximately $70 billion on developing the metaverse, you might idly think, as I did, that it sounds like a lot of money.

But as we see big numbers ever day, a billion dollars here, a trillion dollars there, it’s quite hard to grasp the scale of what we are talking about.

So let’s put it into perspective.

The development …

🤖 Why is Tesla building a robot?

Jamie Green — Mon, 10 Oct 2022 13:32:03 GMT

Tesla makes cars, solar panels, and now apparently they make robots too.

On 1st October, Tesla held their ‘AI Day’, a presentation of all the things that they are doing in artificial intelligence.

You can watch the whole 3.5 hour show here.

Tesla’s ‘Optimus’ robot

The star of the show was ‘Optimus’, a humanoid robot that can walk slowly and wave at the crow…

🚗 Who will win the race to build a self-driving car?

Jamie Green — Mon, 03 Oct 2022 12:25:15 GMT

In 2015, Elon Musk predicted full self-driving cars were just around the corner, speculating it would be just a couple of years before ‘complete self-autonomy’.

I don’t know about you, but I still drive myself around.

But not everyone does.

Cruise, a self driving car company owned by General Motors offers an entirely self driving taxi service in San Franci…