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Morning Briefing

🇨🇳 China's AI Revolution: Hold the Mayo🥪

Good Morning from San Francisco,

China's latest AI prodigy, Manus AI, promised revolution. It can't order a sandwich. 🥪

The hype was astronomical: 138,000 Discord members, invitation codes selling for thousands, experts swooning. Reality hit hard. Manus turned out to be recycled tech struggling with basic tasks. Some demo videos? Fake. 🎭

Hugging Face founder Thomas Wolf calls AI an overachieving student - great at memorizing, terrible at thinking. Einstein would've yawned. 🤓

Meanwhile, Sam Altman dreams of superintelligence. Wolf would settle for B+ intelligence. Sometimes mediocrity has its charm. 📚

Stay curious,

Marcus Schuler

order signage on grey wooden plank
Photo by micheile henderson / Unsplash

Manus: The Future of AI Gets Lost in the Drive-Thru

The world's most hyped AI can't handle DoorDash. That's not a punchline – it's Manus, the latest "autonomous agent" taking the tech world by storm.

Discord members are fighting over invite codes. Chinese resellers hawk them for thousands. Everyone wants a piece of the future. The future, meanwhile, keeps crashing when asked to order food.

"Given a simple task – ordering a chicken sandwich from a nearby restaurant – Manus needed two attempts. First try: system crash. Second try: it found the menu but couldn't figure out how to pay," reports TechCrunch's Kyle Wiggers. At least it recognized what a sandwich was. Baby steps.

The Butterfly Effect, Manus's creator, claims their AI can buy real estate and program video games. They forgot to mention it struggles with lunch orders. It's like boasting about your rocket ship while your bicycle keeps falling over.

Flight booking? Manus offers a collection of broken airline links. Restaurant reservations? System crash. Creating a Naruto-inspired fighting game? Thirty minutes of processing followed by an error message. The future is here – it just can't do much.

The platform runs on existing AI models from Anthropic and Alibaba. Think of it as a technological turducken – several AIs stuffed inside each other, pretending to be something new.

Chinese media celebrated Manus as "the pride of domestic products." AI influencers shared impressive demos. One viral video showed seamless desktop-to-smartphone operations. Just one problem: the company's research lead confirmed it wasn't actually Manus. Even AI needs stunt doubles.

"As a small team, our focus is to keep improving Manus and make AI agents that actually help users solve problems," a Manus spokesperson told TechCrunch via DM. Translation: they're working on the whole "making it work" thing.

The closed beta is meant for stress-testing. Mission accomplished – users are definitely stressed.

Why this matters:

  • The gap between AI hype and reality is wider than a Tesla Cybertruck's quality control issues
  • China's latest revolution can't handle fast food. Perhaps they should start smaller – like mastering the art of the vending machine

Read on, my dear:

AI Photo of the Day

Credit: @emme1821 via midjourney
Prompt:
film photography, Llorca DiCorcia, stray black cat walking in the night, Saluzzo, medieval old town, pebbles, nighthawks
woman standing in front of children
Photo by National Cancer Institute / Unsplash

Perfect Grades Don't Make Einstein, Says AI Expert

AI is getting straight A's. That's the problem.

Thomas Wolf, co-founder of Hugging Face, warns that today's AI models are like that annoying student who memorizes every textbook but can't think for themselves. They ace tests but freeze when faced with original research.

Scientists who changed the world often started as academic rebels. Einstein failed his entrance exam. Edison's teachers called him "addled." McClintock's "weird thinking" won her a Nobel Prize. Meanwhile, AI keeps raising its hand to give the textbook answer.

The tech industry has created digital know-it-alls that never question authority. But science needs troublemakers who ask "What if everyone is wrong?"

Why this matters:

  • Most breakthrough discoveries came from people who got B's in school but saw what the A+ students missed
  • We're building AI to be the perfect student when we should be building the class skeptic who questions everything - including their professor

Read on, my dear:

AI & Tech News

Tech Giant Builds AI in Record Time

Foxconn just built an AI model in four weeks using 120 Nvidia chips. The company plans to open-source FoxBrain, a Chinese language model that matches top competitors in performance.

AI skills now required in 1 in 4 US tech jobs

Nearly 25% of U.S. tech job postings now demand AI skills, while overall tech hiring has dropped 27%. The surge in AI roles spans from tech giants to retailers looking for ways to teach machines to reorganize their sock displays.

ServiceNow Goes Big on AI with $3B Deal

ServiceNow wants to buy AI assistant maker Moveworks for $3 billion, sources say. The software company looks ready to make the priciest purchase in its history, with a deal announcement expected within days.

Hinge & Tinder: Soon Your Best Pickup Lines May Come From a Bot

Match Group adds AI assistants to Tinder and Hinge that write messages and polish profiles. Experts warn we're outsourcing flirting to bots - leading to awkward first dates where smooth online chat meets real-world silence.

Ukraine's Internet Lifeline Stays On Despite Musk Drama

After a heated exchange with Poland's foreign minister on X, Elon Musk confirmed Ukraine will keep its Starlink access. The satellite service, now largely funded by Poland, remains crucial for Ukraine's military operations.

Wealthy Chinese Use Shell Companies to Back SpaceX

Chinese investors are secretly funneling millions into Elon Musk's private ventures SpaceX, xAI, and Neuralink. The Financial Times reports they're using complex corporate structures to hide their identities.

Money Mountain: Six AI Companies Grab Half of US Startup Funding

The US startup scene looks flush with cash again - if you're at the top. OpenAI, Databricks, and four other companies are hoarding 40% of all investments while everyone else scrapes for crumbs.

Credit: midjourney

AI Decoded 🔓: Top3 AI-Tools

March 2025's tech landscape belongs to three AI tools that redefined what machines can do. While venture capital chases the next big thing, these established players dominate their domains with capabilities that seemed impossible just months ago.

  • ChatGPT churns out everything from love sonnets to rocket science papers without coffee breaks or existential crises. It works 24/7, spellchecks better than your colleague Dave, and won't ask for a raise. Your boss already can't tell if that quarterly report came from you or the machine.
  • Canva Magic Studio turned everyone into a designer overnight. Your nephew's wedding invitations now look professionally done (despite his questionable fashion choices). No more years of design school - just click, generate, and pretend you knew what "kerning" meant all along.
  • Synthesia is the film crew that never complains. Its AI actors show up on time, nail their lines, and don't demand organic snacks in their contracts. Marketing videos? Training content? Done faster than you can say "but I went to film school."

These tools aren't just changing the game - they're rewriting the rulebook.

Why this matters:

  • The most valuable human skill in 2025: knowing how to ask AI to do your work without letting your boss notice

Read next