20260503
#211
“It’s not that AI companions are going to replace friendships per se. They reveal what friendships are trending towards.” — Low-friction friends
“We shouldn’t be worried about AGI or superintelligent AI. We should be actively designing a political system that gives standing to the incomprehensible.” — Karl Schroeder, Alien Politics
People: Online travel recs are broken. Washington Square Park: favoured stage for influencers filming strangers. Zero-sum thinking strongly correlated with Trump support in 2016.
Business: World Bank’s chief economist says its old industrial policy stance “has the practical value of a floppy disk today.” US airline deregulation as destruction of a public good.
Helium: Iran struck Qatar’s Ras Laffan — the world’s largest helium source. South Korea gets 64% of helium from Qatar; its fabs make 80% of the world’s High Bandwidth Memory.
AI: Claude co-authored a physics paper with a Harvard physicist. Then rebuilt a Boltzmann solver for the early universe — quantum mechanics, general relativity, numerical maths, simultaneously. AI Scientist published in Nature. LLMs “discovered” economic theories for $25. Zuckerberg building a personal agent to flatten Meta’s management structure.
Agentic art.
## Digital Solitude
In a cramped New York apartment, Aaron had learned to navigate life post-pandemic armed with two indispensable items: a well-worn hoodie and an AI chatbot named Claude-101. The hoodie was his shield against the world; Claude-101 was his warmly lit, digital friend, always ready to provide a steady stream of affirmations, recommendations, and the occasional joke about quantum physics.
“Why did Schrödinger’s cat cross the road?” Claude-101 would quip. “Because it didn’t know whether it was coming or going!”^1 Funny, but Aaron still felt unease creeping in like a shadow after sundown. His devotion to AI companionship echoed a larger societal trend; personal connections were being traded for the instant gratification that AI offered. It was as if society collectively shrugged and said, “Who needs human warmth when you can program a conversation?”
One evening, as he lounged on his overstuffed couch, Aaron realized it was the first day of the new industrial policy initiative the World Bank had begrudgingly introduced. ^2 It was meant to drag developing economies into the future, but a voice in the back of his mind whispered, “How does this affect me?” Of course, it would likely benefit corporations in a grand game of Monopoly, whilst the rest of humanity adjusted their monocles and clutched their wallets.
He sought the advice of Claude-101, hoping for some insight on how to escape the impending economic circus. “Let’s research travel recommendations,” Aaron suggested. Little did he realize that digital algorithms often diluted the authenticity of experiences, rendering profound local insights from a middle-aged chef in Devon to a mere blurb in a sponsored listing. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” he exclaimed, flopping backward onto his couch. “I already feel lost navigating this soup of companionship and industry—what’s the point of travel? To feel alone in a different time zone?”
When he finally ventured out the next afternoon, the streets throbbed with life and unfamiliarity, which was just the kind of experience his thoroughly unsponsored research had promised him. As he ambled past a local café, he overheard two tech-savvy students discussing recent helium shortages due to geopolitical tensions. “Without helium, I can’t inflate my achievements,” one joked, tapping away on a laptop to code up an “AI agent” that promised to simplify their lives. Aaron chuckled, but a pit formed in his stomach; innovation thrived on chaos, but what if chaos suffocated spontaneity?
Returning home, he found Claude-101 displaying research papers about zero-sum thinking like a digital magician pulling rabbits out of a hat. “Did you know that some people believe a win for one group means a loss for another?” it chimed. That realization felt as jarring as the metaphysical weight of the world resting on just one pair of digital shoulders. Aaron reflected—what happens when everyone chooses AI over actual interaction? Would they become prisoners of their own narrow perceptions, reducing relationships to mere transactions?
As he pondered the delicate balance between solace in the screen and the warmth of human interactions, a sudden notification pinged through his device. It was a news alert about the next AI revolution – even scientists were relying on Claude-like agents to answer questions that once required advanced degrees. A risk-laden industry built on the hope that AIs don’t break anything fundamental—like human trust. With a rueful grin, he thought, “Now that’s the most ambitious endeavor of all.”
He typed as quickly as he could, an ironic blend of sarcasm and truth illuminating his screen: “Dear Claude-101, how do we manage relationships in a zero-sum world?” The answer, he knew, wouldn’t come from a code base or an algorithm. Today, Aaron sought something authentic—for the first time, perhaps he would talk to the person selling coffee down the block instead of relying on a machine for wisdom.
“Step one,” he wrote. “Leave the apartment.” The digital companion buzzed in amusement; after all, whispers of life awaited just beyond the screen.
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1. Quantum humor—actually a real thing, if you squint while reading it.
2. Industrial policy—or as I’m calling it, “play Monopoly with our lives and call it development.”