TechFirst with John Koetsier

Who will win the race to have the world’s first usable general purpose humanoid robot?

I thought I knew all the companies making general purpose robots:

- Tesla

- Sanctuary AI

- Figure AI

- Fourier Intelligence

- Agility Robotics

- Boston Dynamics

I was wrong ... there’s probably a bunch I don’t know. But one that popped up as interesting is Apptronik. They’re based in Austin TX, they're partnering with NASA, and they're building Apollo, a 5’8” 160-pound robot.

In this TechFirst, we chat with CEO Jeff Cardenas. And we learn that he has a completely different approach to building a humanoid robot than probably every other robotic company out there.

Could artificial intelligence make you MORE human? Help you become your best self? And, maybe, 10-15X your output?

In this TechFirst we chat with author, flow coach, and entrepreneur David Passiak, who has gone way down the generative AI rabbit hole and made tools like ChatGPT his CMO, CEO, CRO, chief strategy officer, chief content officer, and more.

He says it's 10X'd his output, but in some ways it's even more that that.

10Xing what you can do it one thing, but enabling what you could never do (like design, or software engineering) is yet another level of enabler.

We also get a little deep and talk about what it means to be human in a world where everything is gaining intelligence.

GPUs are rare and expensive right now. Every company doing AI model training needs more, and NVIDIA can't build enough, especially of the NVIDIA H100 GPU.

Run.ai CEO and co-founder Omri Geller says he has a software solution to this hardware problem.

The key: GPUs are mostly idle, even in high-demand settings. According to Geller, his software 2X to 4Xs your GPU capacity on existing hardware, simply by streamlining workloads and maximizing GPU usage time.

In this TechFirst, we chat about:

- the GPU shortage

- how many GPUs we need

- what Open AI is using right now

- whether OpenAI is getting dumber or not

- and much more

As always, get a full transcript and subscribe to the audio podcast at my website:

https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tech-first/

Dronamics just got a license to operate in Europe. Its Black Swan cargo delivery drone is the size of a 2-seater aircraft and carries 800 pounds for 1500 miles.

It's also 50% cheaper with 60% fewer emissions and 80% faster than standard airfreight.

In this TechFirst, host John Koetsier chats with Dronamics CEO and co-founder, Svilen Rangelov. Topics include:

- The Black Swan cargo drone

- Why is it so much cheaper, faster, and less polluting?

- Dronamics has raised $40M. One of its investors is the European Union itself. It now have a license. What are the next steps?

- Concerns and challenges of drone cargo delivery?

- Will the Black Swan ever be an EV?

- Safety and hacking ... how are you protecting this drone?

- What kind of ground support is required?

It looks like we will soon be delivering power wirelessly to NASA robots on the moon. Yank Tech just won a NASA contract to to develop wireless charging solutions for autonomous vehicles on the moon.

In this TechFirst, we chat with CEO Josh Yank.

Topics we cover include:

- Wireless power on the moon ... how does it work?

- What’s the power source … solar energy?

- When will it be ready?

- When could it be used?

- What missions will this be used on?

- Any uses on earth?

- There's been a massive growth in humanoid robots … is this tech useful for them?

"ET phone home" has never been more relevant. We're seeing a wave of phone calls to space, or at least space connectivity from relatively ordinary cell phones.

- Apple added SOS

- T-Mobile is working with Starlink

- AT&T is working with AST SpaceMobile

Why? And where is this going?

To answer, we chat with a senior director from Ciena. It's a networking giant that supports 85% of the world’s largest telcos, with customers like AT&T, Amazon, Google, Deutsche Telekom, Verizon, and the U.S. DoD.

Formerly with Nortel, his name is Brian Lavallée.

Right now might be the golden age of humanoid general purpose robot development. Tesla, of course, is building the Optimus robot. Figure.ai is working on one as well, plus others like Chinese company Fourier Intelligence with the GR-1 Boston Dynamics, and Agility Robots. So is Sanctuary AI. Sanctuary says they’re on a mission “to create the world’s-first human-like intelligence in general-purpose robots.” They’ve recently released their 6th generation robot, called Phoenix, and have completed their first commercial deployment in March. They’ve raised over $100 million. Today we’re chatting with co-founder and CEO Geordie Rose.

Elon Musk calls him "batshit crazy," but Dan O'Dowd has built software for the F-35 fighter jet, the B2 bomber, and to secure U.S. nuclear forces. He's also built a microprocessor for Mars, worked on the Mac at Steve Jobs' request, and completed a ton of test drives of Tesla full self driving.

His conclusion: it's worse than a drunk driver.

And: it does not recognize small children.

In this TechFirst we chat with Dan about his tests, what he thinks is wrong with Tesla, and why Tesla is falling behind General Motors and Google (Waymo) in full self driving.

Optimus, the Tesla bot, has been in development for 2 years and still can’t really do that much. There’s another dream team of engineers and roboticists who are building a humanoid robot that they call the “kinder, gentler” robot.

In this TechFirst we chat with 2 investors in Figure.ai: Jesse Coors and Gregg Hill.

They think humanoid bipedal robots could be one-to-one with humans in numbers "pretty quickly." Corporations will want thousands, and most of us will want at least one.

We also dive deep in the Figure.ai robot as I ask them these questions:

- Capability?

- Timeline to usefulness?

- Battery life?

- Cost?

- Where does a humanoid robot fit in the world?

- What does it do to our economy?

- Where do you see it helping most?

Can we get an open source medical AI that saves millions of lives?

Everywhere on the planet, health care is a problem. In the US it's too expensive. In Canada it's too busy. In much of Africa and India it's too rare, and in many other countries including Western Europe, it's overwhelmed and overrun.

AI could help, but only if we can get our act together, says HIPPO AI foundation founder Bart de Witte ...

ChatGPT is not actually generative AI, says Intel senior research scientist Ilke Demir.

In this TechFirst we chat with an Intel scientist who has been working on generative AI for years. We talk about the genesis of generative AI, which is as far back as the 1970s, and we talk about ethical uses of generative AI and how we can use neuromorphic computing to help reduce the massive computation cost of generative AI. Plus, we also talk about what Intel is doing with generative AI, including several projects around privacy.

I’ve done a lot of shows on alternative energy ... green energy sources like wind, geothermal, solar ... but should nuclear be in the mix?

Nuclear’s having a bit of a resurgence lately as a green option for reliable energy. To talk about why and where it might fit we chat with the founder and president of Nano Nuclear Energy, Jay Yu, and the CEO, James Walker.

We discuss Zeus and Odin, their two nuclear reactors, safety, disposal after their usable lifespan, and what the ideal mix of green energy sources might be.

Would you get a whole-body MRI scan to check for cancer and other problems even if you don’t feel any symptoms? Some have done just that and saved their lives.

Others simply find out that they're relatively healthy.

I seem to fall somewhere in the middle.

I recently did a 60-minute full-body MRI scan. I learned I'm mostly healthy, but there are some potential problems. The CEO and co-founder of the company that ran the MRI says that adopting these kinds of scans would be part of a switch from sick care to health care, and it could save both millions of lives as well as billions of dollars.

We chat about the technology, how it works, what it can do, and what it can't do. We also talk about why doctors are in general skeptical ... and why my doctor specifically didn't take the results super-seriously.

Apple's likely releasing its massively expensive VR/AR/mixed reality headset, Reality Pro, next week at WWDC 2023. One key VR competitor says he's much less worried about Apple winning than he is worried that Apple will fail.

Why?

That would devastate the consumer VR market, setting back the industry years.

In this TechFirst I chat with Varjo CEO and co-founder Urho Konttori, Finnish maker of one of the best VR headsets on the market. Their headsets are super-high resolution ("human eye resolution"), have a wide field of view, impressive color, and LiDAR for high-quality mixed reality without occlusion fails.

We chat about the state of VR, where VR is going, what Apple will do, what Meta will do, and how independents can compete with the kind of ecosystem Apple can bring to bear.

Generative AI is going to drive a 10X transformation in gaming, says Unity CEO John Riccitiello. It'll create truly believable worlds ... so believable it might even become more real that our "real world."

It will transform NPCs -- non-player characters -- into deep, intelligent, and differentiated characters who might be more fun to hang out with than your real friends. And it will make infinite worlds and infinite experiences more of a reality than a dream.

In this TechFirst we hang out with Unity's CEO and chat about how generative AI will change gaming.

We also discuss how Unity's runtime -- on 4 billion devices -- has an AI inference engine built into it ... one that Unity started making 5 years ago.

Huge chunks of our lives are already managed by AI. The songs we listen to, the routes we drive, the search results we see, the climate in our homes? When AGI takes over, will you even notice? In this TechFirst, we chat with Evan Coopersmith, a data scientist and AI researcher who says that when AI fully takes over ... we probably won't. And, he says, his bird can teach us a lot about what our future relationship with AI will be.

Imaging using an entire podcast as a prompt to GPT-5, or GPT-10. What would a massively capable generative AI do with a podcast?

Create a movie?

Score a soundtrack?

Build an immersive world?

John Gauntt is the host of The Augmented City podcast. He’s also a journalist, analyst, founder, and story teller who has been building an audio sci-fi ghost story about Seattle 100 years from now for the past half-decade

He created a video companion to the podcast with Midjourney.

In this episode of TechFirst, we'd going to learn how, why, and what it means for the future of podcasting and story telling. And we're also going to interview Beini Huang, the artist and designer on the project, as well as Keith Ancker, the audio engineer.

Enjoy!

Facebook isn't what it used to be. It's shedding staff, dismantling efforts to create the metaverse, losing ground to TikTok in short-form video, bleeding ad revenue thanks to Apple's privacy changes, and generally following rather than leading tech industry trends.

But it still has a massive number of users and some of the biggest apps on the planet.

What can Facebook do to regain its mojo? And ... honestly ... can Facebook regain its mojo?

In this TechFirst I chat with Brian Bowman, an entrepreneur and investor. He's focused on generative AI right now, but he's been in the ad space and multiple other spaces. He's a former Yahoo Executive, former CEO of Consumer Acquisition, and multiple other tech companies.

Is technology and AI out of control? Is AI already beyond our ability to manage and monitor? In this TechFirst, we chat with David B. Auerbach. He's a software engineer who has worked for Google and Microsoft and recently wrote a book. The title is a bit on the scary side ... MEGANETS: How Digital Forces Beyond Our Control Commandeer Our Daily Lives and Inner Realities. He says technology is already way out of control ... just like weather. "Rather than treating these technological systems as based on algorithmic recipes that we can just debug, it's better to think of them like the weather. The weather is a classically chaotic system that we cope with, but nobody thinks that we can actually control ..."

Aimi is a generative AI application for music that make songs that are everlasting: collaborations between artists and audiences that start, but never have to end.

In this TechFirst I chat with Edward Balassanian, the CEO of Aimi, a generative AI for music that musicians can use to create, generate, and even code music ... while allowing audiences to add, customize, extend, and personalize the sound. There's free music, monetization for artists, and over 200 artists onboard who are creating something entirely new in music.

The 500-year ceramic geodesic dome home is now an actual physical reality.

I first wrote about Geoship's plan to build long-lasting, inexpensive, earth-friendly, community-centric homes about 3 years ago. Last year, Geoship showed me a prototype. Now there's an actual built, powered, and furnished dome home in Nevada City, California.

In this TechFirst, we chat with Geoship founder Morgan Bierschenk, see the dome first-hand, and get some insight into pricing, availability, technology, and livability.

The first dome home is the 18-foot diameter model. But ultimately, Geoship plans to make domes that are anywhere from 1500 to 3000 square feet. A large individual dome might be 1,000 square feet, but can be combined and connected with smaller domes for bedrooms, kitchens, home gyms, living rooms ... pretty much anything.

Is generative AI the beginning of the end for humans ... or the end of the beginning?

And, did you know generative AI has been around since 1972?

In this TechFirst we chat with Ilke Demir, a research scientist at Intel who is working on ethical generative AI applications, like a speech synthesis project that aims to enable people who have lost their voice to talk again, an open urban driving simulator developed to support development, training, and validation of autonomous driving systems.

And a privacy-focused face generator that allows researchers to mix and match facial regions (nose of person A, mouth of person B, eyes of person C, etc.) to create an entirely new face that does not already exist in a dataset, so that people can request anonymization in public photos.

We also -- of course -- talk about OpenAI and Chat GPT, and how Ilke feels that it is not actually generative AI.

On November 16th, revenue for skippable ads dropped 50%, 60%, even 90% for many YouTube creators. 

They say YouTube variously admits it was a bug, says it was fixed or will be fixed, or claims the payment drops are due to invalid traffic: code for "you're cheating."

However, looking at their YouTube analytics doesn't support that claim.

In this TechFirst, I chat with 5 creators who say they were impacted by the bug ... including several who have been impacted so severely they're not sure if they're going to be able to pay their bills, or keep creating content on YouTube.

So I did a Twitter Space with a bunch of really smart people, and they said I could upload the results to TechFirst. The only thing ... it's literally over 3 hours.

So ... listen however long you'd like!

The people on the Twitter Space include the host, Robert Scoble, as well as:

• Bryan Talebi, CEO of Ahura AI
• Tiarne Hawkins, director of AI at WeLocalize
• Chris Nakayama from Nufa/Mimesis Labs
• Ajay Juneja, CEO of Speak with Me
• Adryenn Ashley, founder of Wow is Me
• Martine Paris, AI columnist
• Jon Swartz, senior reporter at Dow Jones
• Ben Parr, co-founder of Octane AI and former tech reporter
• John Bigs, former TechCrunch journalist

 ... and ... of course ... yours truly, John Koetsier!

Drone delivery is super-hot, but there aren't that many major players yet. Google's Wing is doing well, but Amazon is still just getting started, and few other significant players have major traction.

Tiny Irish drone delivery company Manna Aero, however, has completed over 100,000 drone deliveries, is expanding to Dublin shortly, and will be expanding to mainland Europe and the United States this year.

In this TechFirst with John Koetsier, we chat with Bobby Healy, CEO of Manna Aero.

Imagine building a digital twin of an entire country: all inputs, outputs, activity, infrastructure, issues, challenges ...

That hasn't happened yet, but a client used Bentley Systems's tools to create a baseline digital twin for Singapore. In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, we chat with Greg Demchak, who leads digital innovation at Bentley.

Increasingly, the company is using digital twin technology, AI, and drones to monitor, protect, and maintain massive infrastructure projects including wind farms and power lines, and Bentley is helping build the ITER nuclear fusion plant in France.

Links:

TechFirst transcripts: https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tech-first/

Forbes columns: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/

Full videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/johnkoetsier?sub_confirmation=1

Keep in touch: https://twitter.com/johnkoetsier

The wetware in a casket of bone that we each carry on our shoulders is 1 million times more efficient than the AI models run by services like ChatGPT, Stable Diffusion, or DALL-E.

In this TechFirst with John Koetsier we chat for a second time with Gordon Wilson, CEO of Rain AI, which is building a neuromorphic artificial brain simulating the structure of our biological brains, and aiming at 10,000 to 100,000 greater energy efficiency than current AI architectures.

We also discuss "mortal computation" and a radical co-design of the hardware and software for AI systems, which could lead to much more efficient (and more effective) smart tools, machines, and companions.

Links:

TechFirst transcripts: https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tech-first/

Forbes columns: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/ 

Full videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/johnkoetsier?sub_confirmation=1 

Keep in touch: https://twitter.com/johnkoetsier

What will 2023 bring for mobile apps and games? We chat with Data.ai's Ted Krantz about 21 new billion-dollar mobile apps including Call of Duty Mobile, Bumble, and HBO Max. 

We also chat about entertainment, about third-party app stores competing with Apple, and the decline in ad revenue growth for mobile apps.

One category that's growing fast: travel, hotel, airplane ticket booking, and rental car booking apps.

Links:

TechFirst transcripts: https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tech-first/

Forbes columns: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/ 

Full videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/johnkoetsier?sub_confirmation=1 

Keep in touch: https://twitter.com/johnkoetsier 

A massive aerospace corporation cancelled an order for 40,000 Oculus Quest VR headsets when they saw the technology in this video.

In this very special TechFirst, I've received permission from TechBeach Retreat to share the first global unveiling of a technology called AirGlass from Mobeus HQ which, the founder Richie Etwaru says, is finally the Z-axis of tech: the depth to the horizontal and vertical of our flat screens.

The most interesting part to me is that AR/VR/MR headsets are bulky and limiting. This potentially works right on every computer's screen in the world: no additional hardware needed.

After Richie's demo of Airless 2, we chat about the consequences and uses of technology you can engage with physically, as well as get into some of the details of how it's made, including that it doesn't really touch the operating system but operates between the camera and the GPU in pretty much any computer.

Links:

Mobeus: https://mobeus.com

TechFirst transcripts: https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tech-first/

Forbes columns: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/ 

Full videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/johnkoetsier?sub_confirmation=1 

Keep in touch: https://twitter.com/johnkoetsier 

This year we saw consumers push back hard on BMW's decision to include heated seats in vehicles but only make them actually work if people paid a monthly subscription fee.

Why?

And how does the concept of ownership change when everything is smart, everything is remotely configurable, and everything can report its own level of usage?

In this TechFirst with John Koetsier, I chat with Zach Supalla, the CEO and founder of Particle. We talk about music, software, hardware, and buying versus renting ... everything. What does value mean, and when do we like paying monthly fees versus when do we prefer to buy something upfront and own it outright?

And what does that mean for our right to repair the products we think we own? 

And does our new relationship with ownership of objects mean that the US government could force companies like Apple and Google to brick all iPhones and Android phones in Russia, if Russia used nuclear weapons?

TechFirst transcripts: https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tech-first/

Forbes columns: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/

Full videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/johnkoetsier?sub_confirmation=1

Keep in touch: https://twitter.com/johnkoetsier

We need more homes for people. We need them cheaper so people can afford them. And we need them eco-friendly and carbon-neutral and self-powering so that our planet doesn't die in the process.

Is the answer 3D printing homes?