"There's no question about it — whether you want it or not — the best way to help some of these communities is gonna be AI-based avatars," Oz, the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said recently at an event focused on addiction and mental health hosted by Action for Progress."

Medicare and Medicaid are the US's universal healthcare programs for older and low-income people. They've faced steep cuts in funding since Trump came to power, particularly in rural areas.

New research in Rwanda and Pakistan shows LLMs can outperform human doctors in diagnostic success. We're heading for a world where everyone gets the same standard of AI healthcare, and it's near free & universally accessible. It will be a big improvement in Rwanda and Pakistan, and it will probably be an improvement for poorer people in developed countries, too.

Dr. Oz pushes AI avatars as a fix for rural health care. Not so fast, critics say

Sick of expensive gasoline and overpriced gasoline cars? Not only are EVs getting cheaper than gas cars (and still have years of economy-of-scale price reductions ahead), but paired with renewables, their fuel source is getting ever cheaper, too.

This is how the fossil fuel industry will die. The alternatives will just keep getting cheaper and cheaper. In a few years' time, it will be obvious to everyone that only spendthrift fools will be choosing gasoline-powered cars.

This state’s power prices are plummeting as it nears 100% renewables - South Australia is proving to the world that relying largely on wind and solar energy with battery back-up is incredibly cheap, with electricity prices tumbling by 30 per cent in a year and sometimes going negative

Economic "growth" seems to be doing less and less for most people. Its financial benefits mainly accrue at the very top of society; most people just get squeezed. Less housing, depressed wages, ever more crowded and less available services, the list of consequences of constant growth goes on.

The issue has a toxic element of anti-immigrant racism, but many are turning against the idea because they think the net negatives outweigh the positives. Switzerland's upcoming referendum is this in a microcosm. The right-wing anti-immigrant Swiss People's Party got 100,000 signatures to trigger their referendum, but support for the measure is also coming from outside their base. Polling has the result at near 50:50. If it passes, it will force a Western government to do something no one has ever had to do before - run a country where you cannot have endless economic growth.

Switzerland to vote on plan to cap population at 10mn: Country has 9.1mn permanent residents and experts fear the move will limit companies’ access to foreign talent

Last week’s $26 billion EV write-down by Stellantis follows similar moves by Volkswagen ($6 billion), GM ($7.6 billion), and Ford ($19.5 billion), underscoring a strategic retreat from electric vehicles back to gasoline cars and hybrids. Legacy automakers frame this as pragmatism, but in essence, they are abandoning investment in the future. These write-downs reveal their failure to achieve manufacturing scale, jeopardizing their future competitiveness. A genuine commitment would involve scaling production, cutting prices, and stimulating demand. Meanwhile, aided by subsidies and affordability, EV adoption in China is soaring.

ARK’s research indicates that manufacturer hesitancy, not consumer reluctance, has hindered EV adoption. Vertically integrated companies like BYD are now scaling and unleashing mass-market demand. With prospective operating costs approximately one-third those of gasoline vehicles, ARK says that with just one third the operating costs, battery electric vehicles will dominate global auto sales within five years.

One of the conundrums of mid-2020s US AI is its urgent need for electricity, and its seeming refusal to pursue the obvious path towards achieving this. China won't have this problem. It's installing solar & batteries at the rate of several nuclear power stations a month.

US Big Tech seems to be doing everything it can to avoid the obvious. It supports a President who is doing their best to ban wind power. Meta has signed a deal to power its AI with new nuclear. Good luck with that, Meta, if past performance is any guide, you still won't have it in 2040. xAI is looking at gas turbines. The problem there? The waiting list for new turbines stretches to the 2030s. Never fear. It will just spend orders of magnitude more than China does with solar+batteries to put data centers in space.

What's the problem with embracing solar+batteries? The AI firms are slated to spend $660 billion in 2026 alone. They could replicate a huge chunk of China's solar manufacturing capacity with some of that. There are plenty of home-grown grid storage startups with batteries, too.

The inevitable conclusion? Consumers will subsidize their mistakes with higher electricity prices as they use up more and more of the existing grid's capacity, as none of their decisions with gas, nuclear or data centers in space work out.

Waymo (Google's self-driving car project) currently only operates in the US, but plans to expand to Japan & Britain in 2026. Do these "remote drivers" in the Philippines have US, Japanese, or British driving licences? Waymo isn't saying. How do they get away with being in charge of a vehicle? Try telling a police officer who has pulled you over in America, Japan, or Britain that you are driving without a licence & see how far it gets you.

Robo-taxis may be at Level 4 self-driving (that occasionally requires human remote drivers) until the 2030s. Is this about to turn into another global battle between regulators versus Big Tech, who'll insist they should be able to do what they want?

Waymo Tap-Dances about Overseas Remote Drivers

Human doctors take years to train, and the resources to train enough are so limited that few countries have enough doctors. We are so used to that state of affairs, it's hard to imagine having a magic wand that could be waved to solve the problem overnight.

Yet, that is almost what AI can do. According to the World Bank’s 2025 Global Findex Digital Connectivity Tracker, about 68 % of adults in developing (low- and middle-income) economies own a smartphone. That means almost everyone has access to one they own, or someone close to them owns. Smartphones are a perfect way to access this AI.

As soon as 2030, everyone on the planet, even the very poorest, will have access to expert medical advice. This should start to feed through to dramatic improvements in health statistics, child mortality, and lifespan improvements.

Cheap AI chatbots transform medical diagnoses in places with limited care: Studies in Rwanda and Pakistan reveal real-world utility of chatbots in underfunded clinics, and not just in benchmark tests.

"Even in that simplified, proof-of-concept drone, the printed battery achieves a 50 percent boost in energy density, and uses 35 percent more available volume."

Interesting idea, though no word on cost. I doubt they could compete with the economies of scale lithium-ion batteries benefit from. Then again, it isn't always about being the cheapest. The world is full of hundreds of thousands of different models of machines that might benefit from this. Some people will happily pay extra to get a 50% boost in capacity.

Material’s Printed Batteries Put Power in Every Nook and Cranny