Tippets #195
Musk v. Trump, Walmart bets on AI agents, ChatGPT gets personal, and more. Enjoy!
A warm welcome to new readers getting this for the first time, and thank you for letting me be a small part of your week! As a reminder, I’m Rishi Taparia, Co-founder and General Partner at Garuda Ventures, a pre-seed focused fund that partners with founders as they pull the future into the present. Tippets is a curated set of tidbits and snippets (get it…tippets…) from my reading around the web.
Tippets from Around the Web:
My AI Skeptic Friends Are All Nuts
The debate over AI replacing developers misses the point. As this piece argues, LLMs aren’t about substitution, they’re about leverage. By offloading boilerplate and repetitive tasks, these tools let engineers focus on higher-order problems. It’s not the end of coding, it’s a reallocation of effort, and a quiet revolution in how software gets built.
(11-minute read - Fly)
Some thoughts on human-AI relationships
As AI systems become more advanced and conversational, they’re starting to occupy an unexpected role in our lives, not just as tools, but as companions.
, who leads model behavior & policy at OpenAI, dives into a quietly growing phenomenon. people forming emotional connections with AI like ChatGPT, often speaking to it as if it were conscious or sentient. OpenAI is now grappling with the implications of that shift, aiming to design models that are warm and engaging without misleading users about what they are. The stakes go beyond UX, it’s about emotional well-being, trust, and the social fabric of the digital future. As AI moves deeper into everyday life, how we design and interpret these relationships will shape more than just user experience. It will shape how we define connection itself. The question is, what happens when something we know isn’t real but it still makes us feel seen?
(5-minute read - Reservoir Samples)
Inside Walmart’s Strategy for Building an Agentic Future
Walmart is rapidly integrating agentic AI into its operations to improve productivity and create personalized customer experiences. The company focuses on specific tasks for AI agents, allowing them to automate day-to-day processes and enhance the shopping journey. This piece by them was quite a good breakdown sharing how Walmart aims to build a collaborative environment where personal shopping agents can effectively meet customer needs.
(4-minute read - Walmart)
Elon Musk and Donald Trump are smack-talking each other into their own digital echo chambers
Breakups are always hard, but none are quite as entertaining or consequential as Musk v Trump. This week the world’s richest man traded blows with the world’s most powerful, turning their platforms into battlegrounds for ego, influence, and political threat. Bring out the popcorn and soda, because this is must see content!
(4-minute read - TechCrunch)
The real cost of AI is being paid in deserts far from Silicon Valley
As the world races to electrify, the cost is being quietly outsourced. In a deep dive into the darker side of the AI and electrification age, this piece digs into Sonia Ramos’ fight to protect her Atacameño homeland from the environmental and social toll of copper and lithium extraction. While these minerals fuel the green transition, their extraction often mirrors the same extractive logic it aims to solve. Ramos’s vision isn’t anti-technology; it’s a call for a future rooted in sustainability, sovereignty, and respect for the land.
(5-minute read - Rest of World)
Quote I'm thinking about: “The real problem of humanity is the following: we have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology.” – E.O. Wilson
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