Bill Gates has spent most of his career wishing innovation moved faster. In a new essay, he says AI is the first technology he wishes would advance more slowly.

Past technology shifts created new work that still required human thinking. Gates argues AI is different because it can increasingly substitute for cognition across law, medicine, customer service, software and manufacturing.

His three central concerns are permanent job losses, more capable criminals and harm to children’s development. He still believes AI could transform health, education and scientific discovery, but says those benefits will not arrive fairly by default.

The irony is hard to miss: Microsoft’s co-founder now supports robot taxes and jobs reserved for humans. Online reactions split over the messenger, but Gates, who no longer runs Microsoft, favors institutions coordinating jobs, security and education, plus international safety rules, over an unrealistic global slowdown.

Hugging Face and Pollen Robotics have opened preorders for MicroDuck, a 25-centimeter open-source robot that waddles, grabs objects and gets back up after falling.

MicroDuck has 15 motors, a camera, lidar and motion sensors, and can lift up to 800 grams with its beak. The package includes a battery, USB-C cable and controller, and the robot ships before Christmas.

Owners can train behaviors in simulation, deploy them to the robot, refine them and share the results. Its software kit, simulator and reinforcement-learning stack are open source under the Apache 2.0 license.

Readable software offers more control than a closed system, but privacy still depends on what owners install. Apps can potentially send the robot’s camera data to outside services.

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Here's what to do:

📋 Step 1: Pick one weekly chore Choose something you repeat, such as organizing notes, comparing options, planning meals or summarizing a long email thread.

🧼 Step 2: Remove private details Share only the information the AI needs. Replace names, account numbers and confidential details with simple placeholders.

🔁 Step 3: Make it reusable Ask the AI to create a checklist and a prompt you can run next week. Specify the result you want and how it should be formatted.

✅ Step 4: Test and save it Run the prompt on the real task, correct any errors and save the improved version. If it does not save time, simplify it.

Can governments prepare for AI without freezing useful progress? And does open-source hardware make home robots more trustworthy? See you next time! 🚀

Stay informed, stay curious, and stay ahead with Jumble!

Zoe from Jumble