China wants you to cheer for the robots taking your job | E2329

Summary

Jason Calacanis and Lon discuss China's World Humanoid Robot Games as a PR and military message, while Jason argues Tesla Optimus is far ahead and predicts 1 billion Optimus robots by 2036. The episode also covers a possible Hugging Face $13B sale, Sam Altman's OpenAI platform framing and AI messaging, UBI versus minimum wage policy, and rising investments in grid resilience and drone warfare. The conversation closes with a debate over the current state and future of the Star Wars franchise.

• China's Beijing World Humanoid Robot Games produced humanoid sprint and standing high jump records above human world records.
• Jason argues China is using robot entertainment to make the public root for robots, with broader PR and military implications.
• Jason says a recent unseen Tesla Optimus demo is better than the Chinese robots and predicts 1 billion Optimus robots by 2036.
• The hosts discuss reports that Hugging Face has been approached for a sale above $13 billion and debate likely strategic buyers.
• Sam Altman's comments about OpenAI as a platform rather than a product lead to discussion of UBI, open source AI, and Jason's minimum wage proposal.
• Jason highlights rising middle-class spending on solar panels, batteries, water tanks, and redundant distributed systems after grid and cyber threats.
• Lon reports on a suspected fully autonomous kill drone in Ukraine, and Jason frames Ukrainian drone and anti-drone technology as a booming investment industry.
• The episode ends with a debate over Disney's Star Wars sequel trilogy, Kathleen Kennedy's tenure, and Dave Filoni's potential to fix the franchise.