Thursday Things: Fear the Sphere Edition
29 May 2025. Vol 7 No 22. By Dan McGirt. #303
Thursday Things is here! This week we fight AI for our jobs, remember the bunny horse, and gawk at the ghost sphere from space.
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Bunny Horse! This was amazing in 2022. Image: Stable Diffusion 2022
The Sphere From Space
This can’t be good:
Scientists are BAFFLED after discovering a perfect sphere emitting radio signals from deep space
…this perfect sphere, hiding in our Milky Way galaxy trillions of miles away, is leaving scientists baffled.
The mysterious round object with 'remarkable circular symmetry' is defying current space theories, making its origin and nature unclear.
Picked up by Australia's ASKAP telescope, researchers think it is probably expanding, although it is invisible to the naked eye.
They have named it Teleios which comes from ancient Greek and means 'complete' or 'perfect' due to its stunning shape.
That sounds exactly like the opening scenes of an alien invasion movie.
What's weird is Teleios is only visible in radio waves, which are the longest wavelength part of the electromagnetic spectrum.
So Teleios can't be viewed in X-rays, infrared light or visible light, meaning we couldn't see it even if we were able to get close to it.
Cloaking device? Azathoth?
While the academics don't know exactly what the space sphere is or how it formed, they do have a few solid theories.
It could be a 'supernova remnant' – the debris left behind after a supernova, composed largely of elements such as carbon, oxygen, neon and silicon.
Or so conventional astronomers want us to think. It’s far more likely this is some sort of cosmic scale jellyfish or a star-consuming multidimensional nanoswarm and we’re next on the menu.
Because if we can see the sphere, the sphere can see us.
(By the way there is more than one mystery sphere out there: ‘Ghosts of the radio universe’: astronomers have discovered a slew of faint circular objects
Read all the science details here: Teleios (G305.4-2.2) -- the mystery of a perfectly shaped new Galactic supernova remnant
Yeah, that thing definitely wants to eat us. EMU radio image of the Teleios supernova remnant. Image: ASKAP via The Conversation
AI like a boss
I’ve been fascinated by the profusion of AI tools over the last couple of years since ChatGPT took off in late 2022. Whether it is generating images,1 text, or more recently video, these AIs are getting amazingly better so fast that it is difficult to keep up.
Every week there is a new updated model of some AI that blows away what the previous version could do. We’ve offered some tips along the way, but you really need an AI just to track all the new AI developments.
It’s exciting … and also scary. Not so much in making the Terminator scenario less like science fiction — although I suppose that’s something to worry about too — but in the fact that we (and by “we” I mean AI boffins, not you and me) seem to have uncorked a whole bottle shop full of genies that aren’t going back in the bottle.
We’ve gone from “Look at what this cool ChatGPT thing can do!” to “AI can help me get more done at work!” to “Wait a minute, this thing might take my job!” pretty quickly.
Already companies like Duolingo are going “AI-first”, making a deliberate effort to integrate AI into their workflows and making chages like “looking for AI use in hiring and in performance reviews” and decreeing that “headcount will only be given if a team cannot automate more of their work.”
Of course, they then walk it back after the inevitable backlash — Duolingo Faces Backlash Over AI Strategy, Pivots to Retract Its Statement : “After facing extensive backlash for its stance on AI, Duolingo’s CEO has now attempted to reel back its brash statement on becoming an AI-first platform, indicating that the company is not giving up on its employees.” — but no one is fooled. AI is coming for jobs. Lots of jobs.
A phrase I’ve seen is that that “AI isn’t going to take your job — someone who knows how to use AI better than you will take your job” which posits AI literacy as a valuable job skill you ought to get busy learning.
And that is both comforting and challenging if you’re contemplating your professional future — learning new skills and adapting to new technology has always been part of work life. AI moves a little faster than figuring out laser printers or PowerPoint, but if you apply yourself you can get a handle on it, right?
Maybe so. But then I read these two articles. And now I’m wondering if worrying about AI taking jobs is thinking too small. These writers make the case that AI isn’t going to replace workers in companies — AI is going to replace companies, period.
Have a read and decide for yourself how worried you want to be.
Well, if the Space Sphere Teleios gets us first, maybe this won’t be a problem. On the other hand, maybe Teleios is what happens once the AIs are done with us.
This week’s edition is brought to you by Dan’s Advice: Take control of your digital life.
Until the AI apocalypse hits here are 5 Steps to Organize Your Phone Contacts for a More Efficient Digital Life.
Thank you for reading!
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Bunny Horse!