What The Fudge: All Things AI, Digital Employees, and Solar Bricks
Notes from Raleigh-Durham, Security, Agentic AI, and storing solar energy
Thrice in a row! Here we go!
Listen here: Playlist on YouTube.com/@JayCuthrell
🎙️ The “I Have Allergies” Edition
Welcome back to What the Fudge for Sunday, March 29th, 2026. If I sound a little funny, I’m a little stuffed up—apologies for that, but let’s get to it.
📍 Field Report: All Things AI (Raleigh-Durham)
This week, I had a chance to go to All Things AI in Raleigh-Durham. It was amazing to catch up with so many folks. The turnout was massive; I took some video of a 500+ person line stretching down the sidewalks and around the corner. It was a chilly morning in Durham, especially on the second day, but the energy was high.
🤖 AI Dominance and Security Risks
The big stories this week revolve around AI dominance and security risks. Key names topping the news:
- Anthropic & The Pentagon: The drama continues over whether it will or won’t be used. This follows the recent designation of Anthropic as a “supply chain risk” by the Pentagon[1].
- Claude Mythos: There was a leak (planned or otherwise) regarding “Claude Mythos,”[2] an unreleased model described as a “step change” in AI capabilities.
- Safety & Malware: Despite announcements that caused some cybersecurity stocks to dip[3], rest assured that AI is not displacing security yet. There are still plenty of ways for security to go very, very wrong.
The Rise of the Agents
We are seeing a shift toward Agentic AI (like OpenClaw and nemoClaw).
- These are variants designed for goals and outcomes—a “set it and forget it” approach to autonomous software.
- Digital Employees: This concept is coming to an HR department near you. We need to start thinking about the cost of tokens consumed by human team members versus digital employees.
- Labor Bifurcation: We may soon see the “third leg” of labor split into Real Human Labor and Digital Employee Labor.
⚖️ Social Media & Product Engineering
Major court cases are shifting the landscape for Meta and YouTube.
- Landmark Verdicts: A New Mexico jury recently ordered Meta to pay $375 million over child safety violations[4].
- Product Liability: In a separate Los Angeles case, a jury found Meta and YouTube liable for harmful app design, signaling a major shift toward product liability rather than just content liability[5].
🚀 Beyond Terrestrial Concerns
Interest is spiking in robotics outside of our gravitational pull.
- Orbital Robotics: Expect to see more robotics launched on satellites.
- Sovereign Space: More countries are bringing their specific space programs into focus, moving beyond just the major global players.
☀️ Energy: Solar and Ceramic Storage
We are seeing a precipitous drop in the cost of solar, paired with a massive jump in efficiency and energy conversion.
- Heat Storage: Since we can’t use all that solar energy during the day, storage is key.
- Ceramic Tech: Researchers at ETH Zurich recently unveiled new tech that uses ceramics to absorb solar radiation and reach temperatures over 1,000°C for industrial use.
- Energy-Storing Cement: Similarly, new developments have shown cement combined with carbon black can form supercapacitors to store electrical energy.
- The Blast from the Past: This reminds me of Olivine bricks from the 1970s energy crisis which was a concept I studied as a Material Science major.
That’s the wrap for the What the Fudge Digest for March 29, 2026. Thanks for listening.
