Hey, it's Payton. 👋
AI is the new frontier, and frontiers are never neutral.
The same dirt mound holds the chance to build something good on top of it, the chance for things to go badly wrong, and the chance to fall behind while you're making up your mind. I'll happily wade into all the AI gibble-gabble and bring back the news that matters.
Every Friday, I bring the 4 dangerously interesting things I found, and if you should:
🟢 Steal it
🟡 Adapt it
🔴 Leave it be
1. The data center rebellion 🏗️
Between March and June, Americans blocked or delayed about $98 billion in data center projects, with reports that anger is now spilling over into threats and violence.
Underneath it sits one poll number I’m really interested in: over 70% of Americans think AI is advancing too quickly, with 68% of Republicans and 77% of Democrats agreeing. It’s one of the only things they agree on these days.
🟡 Adapt it. Go first on the conversation nobody's having. The 70% includes your ICP, your congregation, and probably your mom and pop (or even you). They aren't anti-tech; they're anti-being-steamrolled-by-large-tech-companies.
That makes them the most underserved market in your niche.
Be honest about where AI is helping you and where it isn't. Hiding it only makes it look like you've got something to hide.
Give human on purpose. While everyone else races to look more automated, being obviously human becomes the rare and valuable thing.
2. Meta is reading sentences through the skull 🧠
Meta's Brain2Qwerty v2 translates brain activity into text from outside the head, at accuracy the researchers say rivals surgical implants. No electrodes or operation; a headset and your inner (not-so-secret anymore) thoughts becoming a transcript.
🔴 Leave it. Meta can pull sentences straight from your head now with no implant required. The frontier just moved into the last private room you have: your own head. I don't know what I think about this one. Proverbs 4:23 says 'Guard your heart.' That's always been about wisdom, but I think it’s about to become a security setting.
3. Vaseline paid scientists to grade the internet 🧪
Vaseline hired scientists to test viral beauty hacks and publicly graded which ones actually worked, including those that made Vaseline seem unnecessary. The campaign is called Vaseline Verified, and it has pulled 136 million views with 450 co-creating influencers, then left Cannes as the third most-awarded campaign of the whole festival.
🟢 Steal it. Risk the truth in public. In AI-generated everything, honesty at your own expense is the last thing that can't be faked.
Take the 5 most repeated myths in your niche & test or grade them honestly.
Publish the results, especially the ones that don't flatter you.
AI can fake polish, reach, and confidence. It can't fake a brand willing to lose in order to tell the truth. Failure is the new black.
4. SpaceX showed investors an AI phone 📱
SpaceX has been showing investors a handset prototype running a custom OS wired into xAI, with Starlink overhead and no carrier in between. Whether it ships or not, the message to the industry is: the distribution wars are moving from apps to the device itself.
🟡 Adapt it. SpaceX is coming for an industry nobody thought was in play. Our relationship with phone carriers felt permanent, so much so that I imagine you've never questioned it. And it's just one. More and more of what you take for granted is about to get disrupted, and FASTER. Nobody can predict which pillar will fall next. Become the steady voice your people trust.
Bottom line
People will follow whoever they trust to go first. In the AI era, trust is the new currency.
—Payton ✌️
