Robert Yaman

Farm animal welfare is a serious moral challenge, but current solutions lack realism. Today I'm launching The Optimist's Barn - a new Substack that uses a techno-optimist's lens to flesh out how we can build a scalable, abundant agricultural system that also aligns with our ethics.

Eggs are everywhere today! 🐣 One of the most interesting cobot applications I've ever seen. But what's actually going on here? 🥚 This application is used to determine the gender of an unborn chick at SelEggt with the help of allantoic fluid that is pulled out of the egg by non-invasive suction. In addition, you can see the complete cooperation and synchronization of the robots, which perform many activities. Happy easter! 🫶🏼 ~~ ♻️ Join the weekly robotics newsletter, and never miss any news → ziegler.substack.com

@Miles_Brundage I could imagine an explicit strategy that results in this outcome, i.e. "if you're not accidentally breaking things periodically then you're not adopting AI tools in the process quickly enough"

I'm a bit worried Anthropic has an org-wide case of AI psychosis that makes them think Claude is good enough that they can ship random product features without breaking things, but in fact they *do* keep breaking things, and they're not online enough to notice people complaining

Innovate Animal Ag is hiring again! We have a number of new roles: AI Engineer, China Lead, and Head of Growth and Operations. More information on our careers page 👇

Super excited about the latest spinout from Innovate Animal Ag!

Now you can also count in @LaraLeaTrump, @SecRollins, @RobertKennedyJr, and @PamBondi !

@LaraLeaTrump @SecRollins @RobertKennedyJr @PamBondi Now let's start talking more about the link between animal welfare and meat quality!

Context: foxnews.com/media/trump-ad…

Vivek's prediction looking prescient given the recent Trump admin strike force to crack down on animal abuse. We've seen conservatives talking about animal welfare more and more

Context: foxnews.com/media/trump-ad…

It's always been funny to me that brown eggs are seen as healthier / higher quality than white eggs even though it makes no difference, and I'm pretty sure the reason is that brown bread and rice are actually healthier.

@yaqi_gro Also, welcome to X! Banger first post :p

@robert_yaman Hogs with balls are better than hogs without balls

We're evaluating a project using machine vision to measure the size of pig testicles and I'm again wondering....

@yaqi_gro Many are saying

Also 2001: A Space Odyssey, becoming even more relevant! However I strongly recommend reading the plot on wikipedia first. IMO It's an incredible movie if you understand what's going on, but honestly I don't think there's sufficient information in the movie itself to know. Going in blind, one might assume the movie is metaphorical or surrealist or something, but I think there's a literal thing that's supposed to be happening.

@MikeGrunwald Especially given One Battle After Another, I recommend going back and watching all of the Paul Thomas Anderson greats! Boogie Nights, The Master, Phantom Thread, and There Will Be Blood

I’ve decided to start watching more Movies Everyone’s Supposed to Watch. I’ll leave all my honest (and probably embarrassing) reactions in this thread. Please send recommendations!

Some things I love about Taxi Driver: 1) The moody big band score 2) The shot where you're watching Travis talking on the phone, and the camera pans away to the hallway, like the conversation is too awkward to watch 3) The very last scene where there's a weird glitch as Travis looks in the rearview mirror, maybe the whole scene is in his head as he's dying

I started with TAXI DRIVER. It was...weird and just OK? I usually love DeNiro but I couldn't figure out what he was trying to do. The NYC noir was cool and Jodie Foster was disturbingly great, otherwise I didn't really get why it's a classic.

Bird flu cases continuing to climb, this Nov was the second worst in recent memory. Interestingly, most of the infections were in ducks and turkeys, so impact on egg prices this winter might be slightly mitigated.

Had an incredibly depressing conversation with someone in global health (who was themselves very cool tbc) about orgs pushing farmers in extreme global poverty to not use synthetic fertilizers because of their climate impacts, even though they're often better for helping the farmers grow more and the country to escape extreme poverty. This seems to me equivalent to choosing not to build a hospital because it will use energy that causes CO2 emissions. A significant number of people are operating under the really insane belief that no amount of additional CO2 can ever be justified ever. In reality, climate change involves trade-offs between CO2 and human lives in the present. The idea of pressuring people in global poverty to cut their emissions as much as possible is just so crazy. There are always going to be many orders of magnitude better opportunities to cut emissions in wealthy countries. imo if you wouldn't impose very expensive carbon taxes on the global poor specifically, don't expect them to make these other trade-offs either. Save that for the global middle and upper class.