Links and short notes, 2025-05-31
Fellowship deadline tomorrow! Edge Esmeralda next week! and lots more
It’s been way too long since the last links digest, which means I have way too much to catch up on. I had to cut many interesting bits to get this one out the door.
Much of this content originated on social media. To follow news and announcements in a more timely fashion, follow me on Twitter, Notes, Farcaster, Bluesky, or Threads.
Contents
- Apply to the Roots of Progress Fellowship by June 1st (tomorrow!)
- Edge Esmeralda next week!
- My writing (ICYMI)
- Other people’s writing
- Jobs
- Grants & fellowships
- Events
- AI announcements
- Introductions
- Career moves
- Nuclear news
- Aviation news
- Other announcements
For paid subscribers:
- Stagnation was the goal
- Is stagnation a measurement illusion?
- Eroom’s Law
- Cembalest on AI
- More on AI
- Bio
- Podcast interviews
- Links and short notes
- Politics
- Housing
- Gratitude
- Quotes
- Charts
- Aesthetics
- Fun
Apply to the Roots of Progress Fellowship by June 1st (tomorrow!)
Applications are still open for the 2025 Blog-Building Intensive! Launch a blog and improve your progress-focused writing with expert guidance and an amazing community progress builders, writers and intellectuals.
In addition to a general focus on progress studies, this year’s fellowship features two themes: (1) agriculture and (2) health, biotech & longevity. We welcome fellows writing on any progress-related topic, but for a handful of spots, we will give preference to applicants focusing on these themes, for which there will be dedicated programming.
But don’t take our word for it, see what others have to say:
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@NikoMcCarty: I can’t recommend this Writers’ Fellowship enough. It helped me find my community, challenge my own work, and improve very quickly. You should apply! And feel free to DM me directly if you have any questions about my experience in the program.
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@gtmulligan: This program changed my life. Happy to talk with anyone about my experience. Apply, apply, apply! [See also Grant’s post on the fellowship and his thread of favorite pieces from the fellows]
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@RosieCampbell: This was so well-run and it’s a fantastic community, I am very grateful I got to participate. Highly recommend applying if you’re interested in writing on the internet!
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@snewmanpv: I had the privilege of participating in this program last year. Highly recommend for anyone writing about progress-related topics. Come for the information-dense instructional sessions, stay for the community of fellow writers.
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@notanastronomer: I did this last year; I highly recommend. It helped me form a writing practice and I met the coolest people. Happy to chat if you have questions!
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@AndrewMillerYYZ: As a 2024 alumnus of the @RootsOfProgress Blog-Building Intensive program, I strongly encourage applying to join the 2025 cohort. In 10 weeks, I went from aspiring writer to newsletter creator, now approaching 1k subscribers and launching my paywall next week
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@jordanmcgillis: If, like me, you’re in a bit of a policy bubble, this program is a great way to peep into the science and technology worlds. And the Berkeley capstone conference was first-rate.
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@KevinKohlerFM: I highly recommend applying to the @rootsofprogress fellowship by June 1! It’s an inspiring program that builds the progress community & offers opportunities to engage with lots of cool people.
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@salonium: Aspiring writers! If you’ve thought of starting a blog, want to be part of a writing community, get help with editing & learn from other authors, how about applying to Roots of Progress’ fellowship? Friends who took it last year highly recommend it, and I’m one of the advisors!
Edge Esmeralda next week!
I’m going to be at Edge Esmeralda 2025 all next week! From June 2–6, I’ll be hosting daily morning brainstorming/discussion sessions with the aim of envisioning the future, with a different theme each day. The goal is for all of us to get a clearer idea of the opportunities and challenges on the technological frontier in the next few decades—a picture of a future that we want to live in and are inspired to build.
- Monday: AI and its applications
- Tuesday: Bio (health/longevity, genetics, agriculture)
- Wednesday: Energy—and what we could do with it
- Thursday: Aerospace & nanotech
- Friday: Catch-all and wrap-up
Ping me if you’re there.
My writing (ICYMI)
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The Techno-Humanist Manifesto:
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Chapter 5: Solutionism, part 3. “Stopping climate change” is the wrong goal: an anti-human, anti-agency framing. The techno-humanist framing is that humanity should create climate control
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Chapter 6: The Flywheel, part 1. Why was progress so slow, for so long? Should we expect a regression to the mean of slow growth? Or were the last few centuries part of a trend that we can expect to continue?
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Chapter 6: The Flywheel, part 2. I was initially skeptical about claims of stagnation, but I was eventually convinced: Progress has slowed relative to its peak in the late 19th to mid-20th century
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Where is the YIMBY movement for healthcare? Where are the people pointing out the gross violation of economic wisdom, the campaigners for reform against the worst inefficiencies? This field is wide open, and someone should step in and fill the vacuum
Other people’s writing
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The Gap Map from Convergent Research, “a tool we built to help you explore the landscape of R&D gaps holding back science - and the bridge-scale fundamental development efforts that might allow humanity to solve them, across almost two dozen fields” (@Convergent_FROs)
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The Techno-Industrial Policy Playbook, a joint project from IFP, FAI, NAIA, and American Compass that “offers 27 actionable policy proposals to rebuild American industry” (@AlecStapp)
Jobs
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Arc is hiring a Chief Scientific Officer: “Come work with at what I think is the most dynamic and ambitious biology research organization in the world, partnering with @pdhsu, @SKonermann, @davey_burke, Arc’s extraordinary faculty, and many more. We want to build the world’s first virtual cell + use it to develop cures to complex diseases like Alzheimer’s” (@patrickc)
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E11 Bio is hiring a Chief of Staff / Project Manager: “This unique role blends scientific project management with day-to-day operations—and gives you a front-row seat and bird’s-eye view as we advance the field of connectomics toward mammalian brains” (E11BIO)
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Boom Supersonic is hiring software engineers: “Want to build a supersonic jet engine? … No aerospace experience required, just passion and desire to learn” (@bscholl) Also a Supersonic Flight Evangelist: “Do you wish everyone was as excited about supersonic flight as you are? … This evangelist will lead our social, expand our merch, and a zillion other fun things” (@bscholl)
- Ashlee Vance of Core Memory is hiring “an early career science writer who would also like to be on camera. Undergrad or masters in a scientific field required. Interest in bio-tech a plus. Writing skills + video skills a major plus” (@ashleevance)
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Works in Progress is hiring a voice actor “to record audio versions of Works in Progress articles” (@s8mb)
- Nat Friedman, gentleman explorer extraordinaire, says: “Please help us find smart people to work full time on the scrolls!” (@natfriedman) “We’re looking for exceptional people to join our mission to read the Herculaneum Scrolls. … We’re hiring for the following roles: Geometry & Computer Vision Applied Researchers; Platform Engineers; Synchrotron Tomography Reconstruction Expert” (@scrollprize)
Grants & fellowships
- A special cohort of the Brains Accelerator “targeting ambitious AI research programs, with a special focus on security and governance capabilities!” (@Ben_Reinhardt) “This 4-month, part time program is meant to help talented researchers with experience in AI hardware and software build skills, refine ideas, and make the connections to spin up coordinated research programs in governments and nonprofits”
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Cosmos Institute and FIRE grants “to defend free thought and promote open inquiry in AI. … $1M in grants for open-source AI that advances truth-seeking. AI should sharpen thought, not replace it” (@mbrendan1)
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Tarbell Grants: “$1,000-$15,000+ for original reporting on AI and its impacts.” (@tarbellcenter via @CillianCrosson)
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Asterisk Magazine is fundraising for a fellows program for AI writing: “A blog-building intensive for thinkers and writers to help improve the public conversation about the future of AI. … The structure is inspired by the Roots of Progress blog building initiative”
Events
AI announcements
- FutureHouse launches “the first publicly available AI Scientist, via the FutureHouse Platform” including “three superhuman AI Scientist agents today, each with their own specialization.” (@SGRodriques) And soon after, they announced “the first major discovery made by our AI Scientist with the lab in the loop: a promising new treatment for dry AMD, a major cause of blindness” (@SGRodriques). The treatment hasn’t gone through trials and isn’t proven, and there was a lot of followup discussion about whether it was truly new—but this is very worth watching. See also Konrad Kording’s comments on AI for science, below
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The Golden Gate Institute for AI launches “to help you make sense of the AI firehose. … we’ll synthesize the myriad takes that inevitably emerge, and present a coherent picture.” (@snewmanpv, RPI fellow!)
- Mechanize launches to “build virtual work environments, benchmarks, and training data to enable the full automation of all work” (@tamaybes)
- OpenAI announces Codex, “a software engineering agent that runs in the cloud and does tasks for you, like writing a new feature of fixing a bug” (@sama)
- And Imbue announces Sculptor, “the first coding agent environment. Sculptor helps you catch issues, write tests, and improve your code—all while you work in your favorite editor” (@kanjun)
Introductions
- ARIA introduces their “second cohort of Programme Directors – a group of world-class scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs, with proven track records for building ventures, communities and technologies of societal and economic significance” (@ARIA_research)
- Asimov Press and Works in Progress magazine introduce the inaugural cohort of their Writers’ Fellowship: “5 writers. 5 cities. Covering everything from pharmaceuticals to the history of science and AI’s impacts on the developing world” (@AsimovPress)
Career moves
- Dean Ball (RPI fellow) has “joined the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy as a Senior Policy Advisor on AI and Emerging Technology. It is a thrill and honor to serve my country in this role and work alongside the tremendous team @mkratsios47 has built” (@deanwball)
- Eli Dourado is “joining the @AsteraInstitute as head of strategic investments” (@elidourado)
- Jerusalem Demsas has left The Atlantic: “I’ll still be a contributing writer there but largely I’m working on a new, to-be-announced project. Stay tuned!” (@JerusalemDemsas)
Nuclear news
- Germany drops its decade-old anti-nuclear stance: “In a statement to the @FT, German and French officials confirm Germany will no longer oppose nuclear in EU energy policy. A historic shift!” (@sollidnuclear)
- Denmark repeals 1985 ban on nuclear: “The vote came and went in a matter of moments, with a murmur of astonishment across the gathered representatives. 71 for, 34 against. Nuclear will now be explored by the Danish state. Incredible to be here for this” (@energybants)
- Isabelle Boemeke adds that also “Belgium scrapped its nuclear phaseout” and “Historically anti-nuclear state of Massachusetts is considering lifting the nuclear moratorium” (@isabelleboemeke)
- “General Matter is enriching uranium for the US. We will revive nuclear fuel production in America. We chose to do this not because it’s easy, and not because it’s hard, but because it needs doing” (@generalmatter)
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Valar Atomics is Suing the NRC, joining a suit from Texas, Utah, Louisiana, Florida, and Arizona (@isaiah_p_taylor)
Aviation news
- Zipline has “officially launched customer deliveries in the Dallas area from Walmart” via drone: “We are now delivering 65,000+ items to homes in minutes … And this is just the beginning” (@keenanwyrobek)
- Archer Aviation announces an air taxi network: “70 years ago, New Yorkers could hop on a helicopter from Manhattan to the airport in just 5 minutes—for $5, nearly any time of day. That bold idea faded. Today, we’re bringing it back” (@ngoel)
- The Supersonic Aviation Modernization Act “legalizes boomless supersonic flight and ensures America can continue to lead in aviation” (@bscholl)
Other announcements
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