Friday 5.0: Social Media Weapons, Vibe coding, Career Choices, and Spatial Intelligence
What I've found interesting related to Disruptive tech in the last few weeks, especially if you're interested in the world of Compute, AI, Robotics, Industry, and the Future of the Internet
Table of Contents:
Topics I’m Pondering: What should my kids study now??
Videos I’m Watching: How to get the most out of vibe coding
Podcast I enjoyed: The Frontier of Spatial Intelligence
Books to Read: “LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media”
Tools I’m playing with: Cursor (coding agent)
Topics I’m Pondering
There is a lot of concern in the timelines these days about AI’s impact on both job creation, AI replacing senior workers, and AI driving down the need for junior hires
Especially for junior hires just starting out their career, I’ve had a lot of discussions with both parents and students on what they should be studying in order to best catch the disruptive wave that is already hitting us
I wrote more on this in an essay two weeks ago, called: “What should my kids study now??”
Videos I’m Watching
Ok, “vibe coding” is everywhere these days, but how do you really do it well? There are loads of tutorials and demos out there, but I found that this piece from YC really covers some good fundamentals. Worth viewing, especially if you’ve just started getting your hands dirty
Podcast I Enjoyed
“The Frontier of Spatial Intelligence with Fei-Fei Li” by a16z
Language is actually a really poor way to describe the world. Unless you’re a super eloquent orator or poet, you will know the struggle of really explaining what your holiday was really like. Rather it is through spatial awareness (what you see/perceive) that the real breakthroughs in AI for physical applications are being made. Really cool episode on GenAI and what it means - especially for Robotics
Books I’m Reading
“LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media”
Maybe it’s just me chronically being online, but this was a brilliantly scary read that reveals how your Social Media feeds can be more powerful on the global stage than tanks and fighter planes. Winning the SoMe wars can now determine the outcome of kinetic wars. Worth the read
Tools I’m playing with
This tool demanded a lot more technical depth than I had initially expected. While other AI coding agents (e.g. Replit, Lovable, Databutton, etc.) will take your idea and run with it to build pretty much everything for you, Cursor actually requires you to understand how code works. Sounds daunting for many, but it also gives you a LOT more flexibility and saves you a lot of headache further down the line. Using a browser-based coding agent like Replit gets you to 80-90% really fast, but once you start the sprint towards the finish (e.g. connecting databases for scaling solutions, making it open to more users, etc.) you quickly run into issues.
With Cursor, I’ve found it to be the reverse: You suffer up front, but once you get going you really understand how what being in the driver seat actually means
Tip: I’ve started using a browser-based agent like Replit/Lovable for building initial prototypes, and then transferring the prototypes to my Cursor environment for finalization. Has worked pretty well so far!
About Me
I work at the interface between frontier technology and rapidly evolving business models, where I work to develop the frameworks, tools, and mental models to keep up and get ahead in our Technological World.
Having trained as a robotics engineer but also worked on the business / finance side for over a decade, I seek to understand those few asymmetric developments that truly shape our world
If you want to read about similar topics - or just have a chat - you can also find me on X, LinkedIn or www.andreasproesch.com