The Energy Between Us

This week’s newsletter comes early as life has a way of rearranging the schedule. My grandmother passed away, and while there’s deep sadness in that loss, there’s also a strange kind of stillness. Grief slows you down. It changes your energy with the pace, the pull, the hum.

I’ve spent the week less tuned into the AI world and more aware of how fragile and powerful human energy really is. Every system runs on something whether electricity, attention, emotion. The question I keep returning to: how do we use our energy, and what are we powering?

Theme Statement:
This week’s theme is Energy:personal, digital, creative, and ethical. From the hum of data centers to the buzz of student curiosity, this is about how we transfer power and how we protect it.

And I will be protecting my energy as I take a few days away from it all to be with family.

The Hidden Heat of Intelligence

• Tech/AI Idea:
  AI data centers have quietly become the new industrial landscape. Facilities like those described in Stephen Witt’s New Yorker piece can draw as much power as the city of Philadelphia. Each “hero run”, when a model trains for weeks consumes electricity on a scale once reserved for factories.

  But most everyday AI use is small. Asking ChatGPT a question uses about as much electricity as turning on a light bulb for a few minutes. A 3,000-word essay? Roughly three minutes of microwave time. For comparison, an hour of video streaming on YouTube or Facebook uses 360–720 watt-hours which is more than a thousand times a text-based prompt.

  The problem isn’t the single chat it’s the scale of all the chats, videos, and training runs multiplied by billions. And I find it compelling how so many people ask me about the AI energy use but have never considered their endless scrolling on social media energy use for the past 10+ years.

• Personal Tie-In:
  Lately, my own energy has been redirected toward family, reflection, and quiet. Reading about these massive data grids while feeling emotionally unplugged created an odd symmetry: machines running full tilt while the human heart insists on rest.

• Connection to Theme:
  The question isn’t how much we use, but where we direct it. AI’s invisible power reminds us that attention, like electricity, needs stewardship.

When Your Kid Gets There First

• Tech/AI Idea:
  I finally gained access to Sora, OpenAI’s text-to-video platform, only to realize my youngest daughter had beaten me to it. She was already generating surreal little films while I was still waiting for my invite.

  Since joining, I’ve noticed big updates:

  • Character Cameos: You can now turn pets, drawings, or people into reusable avatars, assigning names and permissions.

  • Scene Stitching: Users can link multiple clips into short films.

  • Leaderboards & Social Remixing: Popular avatars and videos circulate publicly.

  • Regional Rollout: Invites temporarily opened in the U.S., Canada, Japan, and Korea.

  • Monetization & Ethics: Paid tiers and tighter consent controls are emerging. (The Verge)

• Personal Tie-In:
  Watching my daughter experiment reminded me what AI can be at its best which is an imagination amplifier. She’s not optimizing content; she’s making weird, wonderful stories. It’s humbling and hopeful to see a generation that treats AI like finger paint rather than factory equipment. But I am also seriously cautious about what data is being collected and what it all means for her generation.

• Connection to Theme:
  In a week centered on energy, Sora feels like creative voltage illuminating what’s possible when curiosity leads the way. The challenge is keeping that energy playful, not performative. Yes, it is still AI slop, but I would be lying if I did not admit I find it funny and creative and enjoyable at least in this initial phase of exploring.

When Trust Becomes the Power Source

• Tech/AI Idea:
  I’ve been alarmed by a growing trend: educators using prompt injection tricks to catch students using AI. It’s a dangerous idea and one that replaces trust with surveillance. When teachers design deceptive prompts, we drain something more precious than electricity: integrity.

• Personal Tie-In:
  I often tell educators: our problem isn’t cheating, it’s trust and connection. If we teach through suspicion, students will learn suspicion. When we hide traps inside assignments, we model deceit, not discernment. Transparency and fairness are not luxuries; they’re the current that keeps learning alive.

• Connection to Theme:
  Energy runs through every relationship. When trust erodes, the system shorts out. The real power source in education isn’t compliance, it’s connection and I continue be more worried about the guardrails being put in place not to prevent cheating that go against ethics and values of learning spaces.

Growing Intelligence: From Data to Dirt

• Tech/AI Idea:
  After reading about digital energy drains, I found myself immersed in the real energy of the National FFA Convention, surrounded by 73,000 students in blue jackets, the largest gathering of future innovators I’ve ever seen. I took time off from work to be able top learn more about FFA and to showcase some precision ag lesson plans.

  I was there showcasing FarmBeats for Students, a Microsoft program using micro:bits, digital sensors, and AI to help students explore precision agriculture. They measure soil moisture, analyze data, and see firsthand how AI supports sustainability. It’s the future of STEM through hands-on, human-centered, rooted in the earth.

  

• Personal Tie-In:
  Watching students wire sensors, collect readings, and connect their data to real-world agriculture reminded me why we teach. Curiosity is renewable energy and it powers everything worth building.

• Connection to Theme:
  This is what positive energy looks like: data that feeds understanding, not division.

Links I Emailed Myself

Because life’s been a bit chaotic lately, I’ve emailed myself more links than usual, those little digital breadcrumbs for future essays, experiments, and reflections. Here are a few that stood out this week.

• Why Everything Became Television — If you’re online, you should read it. If you create online, read it twice. Derek Thompson’s piece is a superb analysis of how every platform now behaves like television by chasing attention, collapsing genres, and measuring value in views. His argument that AI will make time feel scarcer, not more abundant, hit me hard.

• Building an App with AI in 30 Minutes — A rapid-fire walkthrough showing how fast “prompt-to-product” has become. The speed is thrilling and terrifying —where the line between idea and execution keeps shrinking.

• 2025 Wharton GBK AI Adoption Report (PDF) —

  1. 81% of executives now use AI in core operations (up from 63% in 2024).

  2. Only 28% have solid governance policies.

  3. Education and training remain the biggest barrier.

  4. Trust in AI dropped 9% year-over-year.
     Corporate caution often mirrors classroom reality.

• Heads Up: LLMs Probably Remember Every Single Prompt You Type — A reminder that the “ephemeral” nature of our prompts might not be so ephemeral. Good digital hygiene starts with awareness.

• A Prompt I’ll Be Testing Soon:

You are a skilled data analyst and visualization expert.
I’ll provide a dataset — analyze it and:

- Summarize the data (structure, key stats, missing values)
- Perform exploratory analysis to find patterns or trends
- Create clear visualizations that explain the trends and patterns
- Explain insights in plain language

Format output:
- Data Summary
- Analysis
- Visualizations
- Insights

• 1X Tech’s Humanoid Robot “Order” — You can now preorder a humanoid robot. Let that sink in. What’s your instinct about this: excitement or unease?

• OpenAI Live: Next Steps & Infrastructure Expansion

  1. AI “research interns” predicted by 2026.

  2. OpenAI shifting toward a software ecosystem model like Apple or Microsoft.

  3. Ambition: 30GW of compute capacity ($1.4T) with a goal of 1GW per week. The scale is nearly incomprehensible.

• PayPal x OpenAI Deal — PayPal’s integration inside ChatGPT is just the start. The convergence of chat and commerce is accelerating faster than many realize.

• AI Ethics and Student Privacy — Rebecca Bultsma’s post nails it: when EdTech races forward without clear boundaries, it’s students who bear the risk. A great thread to spark faculty discussions about ethical guardrails and consent in AI tools.

• Vibe Coding in Programming Education (Raspberry Pi Podcast) — A refreshing take on how emotion and rhythm play roles in learning to code. Proof that creativity and computation don’t have to live in separate worlds.

• OpenAI’s Transparency Shift + Stefan Bauschard’s breakdown — Together, these pieces show how OpenAI is beginning to reveal more about how ChatGPT handles sensitive topics, moderation, and internal training processes. It’s not full transparency, but it’s movement and worth noting as we keep asking what ethical communication looks like between humans and machines.

Digital Challenge

Try FarmBeats for Students. Even without the hardware, explore sample datasets and experiment with how sensors and AI interpret the environment. Ask: What might an AI learn about your world if it could sense it directly?

Analog Challenge

Write or record a story about energy transfer in your own life about the way a memory, a moment, or a person passes light to you. Then go outside and notice where energy collects like the hum of a streetlight, the warmth of soil, the laughter of people in motion.

Closing Reflection / Question

The world runs on so many kinds of power such as electric, emotional, creative, communal. Which kind are you feeding this week? And how might you share it without running out yourself?

Image Prompt Challenge

Send me your best design using this prompt and remix to your interest:

surreal photograph inspired by Salvador Dalí, featuring symbolic representation of Marlilyn Monroe, Monroe’s melting head dissolves into dreamlike desert landscape, one eye replaced with a dripping pocket watch, her hair is transforming into clouds. Brain-shaped stones lie in the sand, a pink Flamingo appears in the sky, stairs lead to nowhere, long shadows cast across the surreal plain. Soft lighting, hyperrealistic textures, uncanny atmosphere, psychological undertones, subtle references to psychoanalysis and dreams. Shot on ARRI ALEXA 65, 50mm, 400 iso, 8k, Best quality --ar 9:16 --v 7

Tag me or email it and I’ll feature a few of my favorites next week.