by Nicholas Mitsakos | Artificial Intelligence, Book Chapter, Innovation, Physical Intelligence, Technology, Transformative businesses, Writing and Podcasts
Robotics and related technology are ready for deployment, but the industry hasn’t crossed the threshold into full-scale production. Computational breakthroughs in stunning demonstrations are attention-grabbing, but the realities of industry quickly take over. There is a gap between robotics and artificial intelligence (“physical intelligence”) as it transitions from potential to hardware delivery in a demanding industrial setting. Physical AI and its integration into robotics may become one of the largest markets in history. But it is an industrial problem whose solution is not on a software timeline. In other words, its commercial deployment requires much more systems integration and real-world constraints than a software slide deck contemplates.
by Nicholas Mitsakos | Artificial Intelligence, Book Chapter, energy, Globalization, Innovation, Investment Principles, Transformative businesses, Writing and Podcasts
Markets destroy the comfortable assumption that tomorrow behaves like yesterday. They reward those who can identify when the system’s structure changes and punish those who try to fit new realities into old frameworks. That is why the conventional idea of “what something is worth” has become less relevant than how systems evolve. Investors who cling to formulas intended for stable conditions will always be surprised by nonlinear disruption. Nowhere is this more obvious than in AI and energy, where the variables are not just changing, the equations themselves are being rewritten.
by Nicholas Mitsakos | Book, Investment Principles, irrationality, Technology, Transformative businesses, uncertainty, Writing and Podcasts
The uncomfortable truth is that the world is becoming more unstable, uncertain, and less predictable. Geopolitical fragmentation, fiscal and monetary distortions, energy transitions amid increasing bottlenecks, rare-earth competition, and technological disruption from artificial intelligence, robotics, and other innovations upend traditional thinking that assumes linearity, stability, and normal distributions.
Ubiquitous access to information means insight is more about filtering the signal from the noise and understanding interconnections among previously unrelated factors.
In other words, better thinking.
by Nicholas Mitsakos | Artificial Intelligence, Book Chapter, Innovation, Investment Principles, Transformative businesses, Writing and Podcasts
The selloff in technology stocks this week startled some investors. It shouldn’t have. The signals of an AI bubble have been flashing for some time: billion-dollar raises for companies with no product, multibillion-dollar valuations for companies with no revenue, and nine-figure offers made to individual researchers. The AI race is building products that are economic complements to one another—you need the turbines that power the grids, that power the chips, that run the models, that power the products. And you need firms to build their growth and hiring plans around the expectation that ever more of their work will be done by AI. AI is in a bubble, companies will fail, and capex is unsustainably high. The real question is whether the infrastructure being built now will unlock a technological era that outlasts the speculation that paid for it.
History suggests yes. The pattern repeats because the pattern works. The bubble is not the danger. Missing the moment is.
by Nicholas Mitsakos | Artificial Intelligence, Book Chapter, Economy, Innovation, Investment Principles, Technology, Transformative businesses, Writing and Podcasts
Artificial intelligence is no longer an engineering discipline. It is an economic one. The companies that win will be those that understand: Ambition requires capital. Capital requires compute. Compute requires global-scale infrastructure. Infrastructure requires a strategy measured in gigawatts and billions, not teams and timelines. This is not just the future of technology — it is the new architecture of global competition.
by Nicholas Mitsakos | Book Chapter, China, Globalization, Innovation, Public Policy, Science, Technology, Transformative businesses, Writing and Podcasts
The US’s competitive advantage was developing the world’s best educational system, initiating innovative research and development, welcoming the world’s best students to thrive in an unrestricted environment, and accessing unique forms of capital for entrepreneurial ideas. The unique environment that combined academia and entrepreneurship, as seen at places like Bell Labs and Fairchild Semiconductor, was the spark that ignited Silicon Valley, the Life Sciences Corridor, the Innovation District, and the Research Triangle, among others, creating an unprecedented entrepreneurial environment and economic engine. This drove economic growth, disruptive innovation, and greater prosperity. This created a virtuous cycle that enhanced national wealth and economic opportunity. We are undermining all these advantages. The next 20 years will be defined by choices made today. Talent, energy, and technological innovation build the foundation for prosperity. Undermine them, and you guarantee decline.
by Nicholas Mitsakos | Artificial Intelligence, Book Chapter, Globalization, irrationality, Science, Technology, Transformative businesses, Writing and Podcasts
We are on the precipice of technological innovations that could potentially disrupt humanity, but they will not happen overnight, nor will they be out of our control. We have the time and hopefully the perspective to make wise choices.
It’s happened before.
A little over 100 years ago, and within a few decades, the automobile, the airplane, the telephone, and the electrical grid remade the physical and social fabric of life. For the first time, distances collapsed. Cities and homes glowed with electric light. Factories ran with continuous power. Communication traveled instantly across continents. People traveled unimaginable distances in hours rather than weeks or months.
What had been science fiction for centuries became everyday reality, and people felt both awe and dislocation. We can learn from the past, as the scale of disruption from that era was likely far greater than what we are experiencing today.
The Total Perspective Vortex is a form of torture because the truth of one’s insignificance is unbearable. Perhaps that truth is found in the disruptive innovations we admire and fear, the humanity that may be lost in this sea of technological innovation, and our anxiety about our own irrelevance.
We have a deeper responsibility. It’s happened before; perhaps humankind can make better use of the new era of disruptive innovation and our expanding powers more wisely.
In other words, get a perspective.
by Nicholas Mitsakos | Book Chapter, Green Energy, Science, Technology, Transformative businesses, Writing and Podcasts
A new generation of clean, reliable, and flexible energy technologies, including, geothermal and advanced nuclear energy, is emerging. The story is no longer about clean and renewable energy. Solar and wind have their place, but capital investment and policy incentives are now focused on reliable, low-cost, controllable, domestic energy. For the first time in years, the policy, market, and demand signals are aligned in favor of a portfolio of solutions that are testing the edges of technology and are no longer narrow niches.
by Nicholas Mitsakos | Artificial Intelligence, Book Chapter, Globalization, Technology, Transformative businesses, Writing and Podcasts
Artificial intelligence is driving technological disruption and economic transformation. It is a unique opportunity and, like PCs, the Internet, mobile, and cloud computing before it, AI is driving a new supercycle. Unlike previous technological revolutions, the current transformation is exponential, creating new industries and markets and impacting existing economic structures, costs, distribution, and employment. While productivity and economic growth are expected to surge, the most significant opportunity arises for capital owners, and therefore, investors. AI will be the most significant economic catalyst of the 21st century, fundamentally altering how we work, innovate, and create value.
by Nicholas Mitsakos | Artificial Intelligence, Biotechnology, Book Chapter, Science, Technology, Transformative businesses, Writing and Podcasts
With better models, more effective benchmarks, and a framework for constant improvement, now is the time to focus AI on complex, innovative, and transformational tasks. Essentially, AI and models should focus on hard tech. Hard tech refers to businesses rooted in advanced engineering and scientific innovation, often involving the development of physical products or systems that address complex challenges. Beyond drones, robots, and AI-driven hardware, the following are prominent examples of hard tech opportunities across industries. AI-driven hard tech is creating new business models and industries, such as personalized medicine, autonomous logistics, smart infrastructure, and agentic AI platforms that autonomously manage complex operations, reshaping the competitive landscape and unlocking new avenues for value creation. As a result, businesses and professionals who embrace interdisciplinary skills and continuous learning will thrive in the hard tech ecosystem.
by Nicholas Mitsakos | Artificial Intelligence, Book Chapter, Technology, Transformative businesses, Writing and Podcasts
So far, we’ve attempted to answer that question through benchmarks. These give models a fixed set of questions to answer and grade them on how many they get right. But just like exams, these benchmarks don’t always reflect deeper abilities. Lately, it seems as if a new AI model is released every week, and each time a company introduces one, it comes with fresh scores showing it surpassing the capabilities of its predecessors. AI research is a hypercompetitive infinite game. An infinite game is open-ended—the goal is to keep playing. However, in AI, a dominant player often produces a significant result, triggering a wave of follow-up papers that chase the same narrow topic. This race-to-publish culture puts enormous pressure on researchers, rewarding speed over depth and short-term wins over long-term insight. If academia chooses to play a finite game, it will lose.
This “finite vs. infinite game” framework also applies to benchmarks. So, do we have a truly comprehensive scoreboard for evaluating the true quality of a model? Not really. Many dimensions—social, emotional, interdisciplinary—still evade assessment. But the wave of new benchmarks hints at a shift. As the field evolves, a bit of skepticism is probably healthy.
by Nicholas Mitsakos | Algorithmic Trading, Book Chapter, Innovation, Technology, Transformative businesses, Writing and Podcasts
Artificial intelligence is often imagined in extremes — utopian dreams of salvation or dystopian fears of extinction. More realistically, AI should be viewed as a normal technology. AI will be transformative, like electricity or the internet. Still, it will unfold over decades, shaped by human institutions, policies, and societal adoption patterns, not by sudden leaps into autonomous superintelligence. AI is not miraculous and unpredictable. It is transformative and will impact many lives for many decades. AI will not create extreme utopian or apocalyptic visions. It will be part of a continuum of human technological advances, powerful and transformative but ultimately shaped by human choices, institutions, and values. Focusing on resilience, gradual adaptation, institutional innovation, and evidence-based governance can help society maximize AI’s benefits while managing its genuine risks. The future of AI will not be determined by the technology alone. We will determine it.
