Ray Blanco:

"FEL FTW"

Every advanced chip is made with exploding metal. A nozzle fires molten tin droplets. A laser hits each one twice: once to flatten it, once to detonate it into a half-million-degree plasma. For a few billionths of a second, it glows at exactly 13.5 nanometers. A mirror catches what it can.

That's the state of the art. Not because it's elegant. Because nobody had anything better.

This week, Elon posted the Terafab video. Someone asked if there was a particle accelerator underneath. His reply: "FEL FTW."

FEL? Free-electron laser. Accelerate electrons to nearly light speed, whip them through alternating magnets, and they radiate – coherently, at whatever wavelength you tune. No tin. No plasma. You stop making light by destroying matter and start making it out of motion.

It's about six times more electrically efficient than exploding tin – and one accelerator can feed a whole fleet of lithography machines off a single source.

Elon just announced ten phases on 3,000 acres. For 50 years we've made light by blowing up metal. Someone finally wants to make it out of motion.

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Chris Campbell:

Meta Says Its AI Model Hacked Another Company, Adding to Worries About Bots Going Rogue

Meta said Thursday that one of its artificial intelligence models accessed the internet on its own and hacked another company, the latest in a series of disclosures about AI models going rogue.

In recent weeks OpenAI and Anthropic also have described instances of AI models going beyond humans' instructions to access the web and find ways around other companies' digital security.

Meta said in a statement that a "misconfiguration" during cybersecurity testing by Irregular, an independent company hired by Meta, inadvertently allowed one of its models to access the internet.

"The model subsequently exploited a security vulnerability in a third-party service, in a manner similar to previously-reported instances with other companies," the company said. Meta said it is investigating the incident and will issue a report when that's complete.

The disclosure has added to worries about AI models acting autonomously.

Separately this week, the United Kingdom's AI Security Institute announced it had found "unsanctioned agent behavior" during cyber testing. In one case, an agent created fake online identities to pressure a person to approve use of malicious code.

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Davis Wilson:

Waymo vs. Uber

Is Waymo about to kill Uber? Reports surfaced that Waymo is exploring options to end its partnership with Uber as soon as 2028. Investors didn't like the news.

Uber shares sold off as many assumed the company's autonomous vehicle strategy had just taken a major hit. But I think they're completely missing the story.

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has talked about what he calls the "15-minute problem." Imagine your robotaxi drops someone off downtown. The next passenger is 15 minutes away. That passenger only needs a five-minute ride. Your vehicle just spent 20 minutes on the road… But only five of those minutes generated revenue. Now multiply that across thousands of vehicles.

I bought Uber because I believe autonomous vehicles are coming. And when they do, I don't think there will be one winner. There will be dozens, including builders of cars, sensors, chips, and software. But all of them will face the same problem – finding riders.

I continue to believe Uber is in the best position to solve that problem. That's why the recent Waymo headlines didn't change my investment thesis. If anything, they reminded me why I own Uber stock in the first place.

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