Priya: The AI is learning to design better chips... for itself.
Theo: This is Theo.
Priya: And this is Priya.
Theo: It's Thursday, October 15th, and you're listening to Money Daily.
Priya: We've got a packed show for you today.
Theo: A startup thinks it can solve the AI chip crisis… by letting AI design its own chips.
Priya: Then, the CEO of a controversial surveillance company doubles down, saying privacy concerns shouldn't 'pause progress.'
Theo: And we'll explain why Big Pharma wants to start testing drugs on lab-grown, mini-intestines.
Theo: Priya, let's start with the 'compute crisis.' Everyone in tech is worried that we just can't build AI fast enough because we don't have the right chips.
Priya: Exactly. And a startup called Ricursive Intelligence says it has the answer: get AI to design its own chips.
Theo: Here's the wild part: they're building an AI that designs a chip, tests how well it works, and then uses what it learned to design an even better one. It's a recursive feedback loop.
Priya: It's called Ricursive Intelligence for a reason. But how is this different from what Google or Nvidia are already doing? This sounds like a very expensive science project.
Theo: Some pretty smart investors seem to disagree. TechCrunch reports they've pulled in a fifty-million-dollar seed round.
Priya: Fifty million. Okay. But does it solve the problem? I get the promise—custom chips that are super efficient. But making chips is one of the most expensive and difficult things to do on the planet.
Theo: That's the bet! That the AI's designs will be so good it justifies the cost. They're not going after every chip, just the most powerful ones needed for AI data centers.
Priya: The founders themselves admit this is a moonshot. So what does this mean for regular people, other than a few VCs getting to feel like they're funding the future?
Theo: If this works, it could make running powerful AI much, much cheaper. That means everything from medical research to your phone's digital assistant could get better and more accessible.
Priya: Or it's a breakthrough that allows AI to create more convincing spam calls. We'll check back in a few years.
Priya: Alright, next up: let's talk about being watched. The CEO of Flock Safety, Garrett Langley, was at TechCrunch Disrupt defending his company's network of surveillance cameras.
Theo: Right, Flock puts cameras and license plate readers all over neighborhoods and sells access to that data to police and HOAs. Langley argues it's a game-changer for solving crime—tracking down suspects, finding stolen cars.
Priya: But there's been a huge national backlash from privacy and civil rights groups. They argue this creates a massive database of our movements that can be easily abused. You drive to a protest, a doctor's office, a friend's house—there's a record of it.
Theo: Langley's response at the conference? 'We shouldn't pause progress.' He's arguing the crime-fighting benefits are worth the privacy risks.
Priya: Worth the risk for whom? He's selling a product. The people whose movements are being tracked non-stop aren't the ones profiting. He claims there are guardrails, but we've already seen reports of misuse by law enforcement with similar technologies.
Theo: To be fair, he says the data is deleted after 30 days and access is audited. They're not just letting any officer browse the data for fun.
Priya: Thirty days is an eternity for data. And an audit only tells you after an officer abused the system to look up their ex-wife's location. It doesn't stop it. So where's the money angle here?
Theo: It's being bought with your money. Either your tax dollars are paying for the police to have it, or your HOA fees are. And these decisions are usually made at a really local level.
Priya: So the takeaway is to pay attention to your city council or HOA agenda. The debate over putting a camera on your corner is a debate about your community's budget and your personal privacy. Don't let it happen without your input.
Theo: Okay, for our last story, we're making a hard turn from surveillance to something… biological. We're talking about lab-grown, mini human intestines.
Priya: Of course we are. Okay. A startup called Intero Biosystems is selling these 'organoids' to drugmakers.
Theo: But it's for a really good reason. For decades, testing new drugs meant testing on animals—which is expensive, ethically messy, and often, a bad predictor of how drugs work in humans.
Priya: Right, regulators are pushing for alternatives. So, Intero's pitch is: instead of testing your new gut medication on a beagle, test it on this tiny, lab-grown human gut model. It's faster, cheaper, and more accurate.
Theo: The article says they aren't full organs, but they're complex enough to mimic how a real intestine absorbs and reacts to drugs.
Priya: So what's the financial implication? This seems huge. Drug development is a multi-trillion dollar industry.
Theo: Exactly. For a start, it could mean better, safer drugs get to market much faster, especially for diseases like Crohn's or colitis.
Priya: And second, if this technology can reduce the number of drugs that fail in expensive, late-stage human trials, it could theoretically lower the overall cost of drug development. Those savings could, maybe, possibly, be passed on to the consumer.
Theo: You sound skeptical about that last part.
Priya: I'm always skeptical when it comes to Big Pharma passing on savings. But hey, less animal testing and potentially better drugs? I'll call it a win.
Theo: Alright, let's recap the headlines.
Priya: So, AI is now designing its own chips, a surveillance CEO says security is worth your privacy, and Big Pharma is getting into lab-grown intestines.
Theo: Priya, before we go, a fun bit of tech history. Today's the anniversary of the first smiley face emoticon, sent way back in 1982. Just a simple colon, hyphen, parenthesis.
Priya: Fascinating. So we can blame that person for every passive-aggressive smiley face at the end of a work email.
Theo: That's one way to look at it! And that's all for today's Money Daily.
Priya: We'll be back tomorrow. Sleep well, and don't worry about the mini-intestines.
This show is made with AI: the hosts’ voices are synthetic and the scripts are AI-assisted. Every story links to its original source.