James Altucher:

RSI Is the New AGI – and It’s Just As Hard To Pin Down

The word “recursion” is the latest buzzword in AI circles. Startups have taken on the name, and many more have started referencing Recursive self-improvement (RSI) in their roadmaps. Like AGI before it, RSI has become a three-letter byword for a cataclysmic AI takeoff – even if there’s still a little disagreement about exactly what it means.

In basic terms, RSI refers to an AI system that can continuously upgrade itself. Once AI systems can manage the upgrade cycle better than humans, the process can become a closed loop, limited only by the compute power they can access, and humans will no longer be necessary or even helpful. Scary or not, that’s a vision that a lot of AI labs are eager to chase.

However, there’s also plenty of evidence that the AI industry isn’t very close to recursive systems in any meaningful way – and is still grappling with talking to a wary public about its progress. Google CEO Sundar Pichai basically admitted as much in a recent podcast interview.

“It’s a continuum, and we are all definitely making progress,” Pichai said. “But in the way people describe R.S.I., that would represent a next level of acceleration and would have a lot of implications, but we aren’t quite there yet.”

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Ray Blanco:

Analyst on China’s Spent Rocket Stages: “Things Only Continue To Get Worse”

Up until a decade ago, China had never launched as many as 20 orbital rockets a year. But beginning in 2022, the Asian country launched 64 rockets and last year reached a record total of 93, marking it as the second-most productive space power in the world.

Unfortunately, China appears to be ignoring long-established norms about disposing of the upper stages of rockets. These are the parts of the vehicle that separate from the first stage of a rocket and push a satellite or spacecraft into orbit.

“China… continues to abandon many rocket bodies in high low-Earth orbit,” Space Domain Awareness expert Jim Shell wrote on LinkedIn early Monday. “The total mass of orbital debris is a key variable influencing the long-term sustainment of space. There is broad agreement that abandoning rocket body upper stages in long-lived orbits is not a best practice. In fact, all the major space-faring nations have acknowledged this.”

China’s space industry is just at the beginning of launching megaconstellations to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink satellite service, suggesting that if the country does not curb this practice it will deteriorate an already congested space environment.

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Enrique Abeyta:

Ford Stock Surges As Ford Energy Lands EDF Battery Deal

Ford is suddenly more than trucks and Mustangs. The company's new energy-storage subsidiary Ford Energy just locked in a five-year framework agreement with EDF Power Solutions North America, and that is why traders keep crowding into F.

The deal gives EDF the option to buy up to 4 GWh per year – 20 GWh total – of Ford’s DC Block battery energy storage systems for U.S. grid-scale projects starting in 2028. That is real utility-scale volume, not a pilot.

For Ford, this EDF contract is early proof the energy-storage story is not just slide-deck talk. Morgan Stanley calls it Ford Energy’s first major commercial win and expects more large customer agreements this year. The bank still rates F at Equal Weight, so this is not a full send from Wall Street, but it validates Ford as a domestic battery storage supplier just as hyperscalers and utilities scramble for capacity.

Traders saw this coming. Before the EDF news hit, F already surged roughly 13%–15% in a single session after Morgan Stanley flagged a “fairly high likelihood” of big energy-storage deals with commercial customers, including hyperscalers.

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