True Swarms: AI's Physical, Agentic Future Unveiled

Resources

Resources & Recommendations

Books

• "The Besieged Fortress" by John Cusack (Narrator) - A 2006 documentary about ants versus termites, specifically driver ants, which visualizes swarm-like behaviors.

Organizations & Institutions

• Lockheed Martin - Chris Benson's employer, mentioned in the context of his work in the military intelligence space.
• Georgia Tech - Mentioned as an affiliation of Chris Benson's parents, who were technical people.
• Amazon - Referenced in discussions about purchasing maker kits and concerns about data privacy with cloud-based systems.
• Google - Mentioned for its AI advancements (TPUs, AI-generated code) and its role in the AI landscape.
• Meta - Highlighted for its strategy of acquiring top AI talent.
• OpenAI - Discussed as a leading AI company, particularly with its GPT series, and its role as a gold standard.
• xAI - Mentioned in the context of developing models with a trillion parameters.
• IKEA - Discussed for its new range of 27 smart home products, bringing smart home technology to the masses.
• Zipline - A startup that is moving delivery drones into production, initially for medical needs in Africa and now for small item delivery in the US.
• Waymo - Referenced in a discussion about autonomous cars.
• NordLayer - A sponsor offering toggle-ready network security, combining VPN, access control, and threat protection.

Tools & Software

• Augment Code - A daily driver AI agent and software development platform, offering context engines, chat, next edit, and completions for CLI, VS Code, and JetBrains.
• NordLayer - A network security solution combining VPN access control and threat protection for modern businesses.
• GitHub Actions - A ubiquitous CI/CD workflow tool, but noted for its slowness compared to Namespace.
• Namespace - A faster alternative to GitHub Actions that caches dependencies, Docker layers, and build artifacts for quicker CI runs.
• Home Assistant - An accessible open-source project for local home automation, offering privacy and integration with local models and voice capabilities.
• ROS 2 (Robotic Operating System) - The most widely used open-source robotic software technology, recommended for those interested in robotics.
• Tokio - A Rust runtime that enables multi-threaded and concurrent operations, particularly useful in robotics.
• Embassy - A Rust runtime for embedded systems, allowing development for small devices like Raspberry Pi without a full operating system.

Websites & Online Resources

• practical.ai - The podcast co-hosted by Chris Benson and Daniel Whitenack.
• Hugging Face - Described as "GitHub for AI," a platform for finding and sharing small AI models.
• GitHub - Mentioned as a resource for finding open-source projects and software communities related to robotics and AI.
• fly.io - A public cloud built for developers, mentioned as a partner.
• tigerdata.com - Website to install the CLI and spin up an agentic Postgres service.
• namespace.so - Website to learn more about Namespace, a faster alternative to GitHub Actions.
• augmentcode.com - Website to install Augment Code, an AI software development platform.
• nordlayer.com/thechangelog - Website for NordLayer, offering network security solutions.

People Mentioned

• Chris Benson (Co-host of Practical AI) - The guest on the episode, discussing AI, swarming, and home automation.
• Daniel Whitenack (Co-host of Practical AI, Founder of Prediction Guard) - Chris Benson's co-host and a key figure in the Practical AI podcast's origin.
• Jeff Bezos (Co-CEO of Project Prometheus) - Referenced for his new AI startup, Project Prometheus, and his wealth.
• Elon Musk - Mentioned in the context of a "pissing contest" with Jeff Bezos and his xAI project.
• Joanna Stern (Journalist for The Wall Street Journal) - Mentioned for her video review of a general-purpose robot.
• John Cusack (Narrator of "The Besieged Fortress") - Narrator of a documentary about driver ants.

Other Resources

• Matter Protocol - An open standard for communication between smart home devices, allowing different makes and models to work together locally.