Unstructured Data, RTO, Tariffs, Capital Flight, and Pessimism
Weekly Review of News in Technology, UX and AI
Here’s the latest news, resources, and use cases from the world of product, UX, AI and technology. Let’s go:
📊 Unstructured Data
🏢 Federal RTO
🕹️ Tariffs
🌏 Capital Flight
💽 Recall
🤖 ChatGPT
😡 Pessimism
Podcast
Structured Thinking for Unstructured Data: A Conversation with Founder Kirk Marple
In this episode of Product by Design, Kyle is joined by Kirk Marple, founder and CEO of Graphlit, to explore the world of unstructured data and how it’s transforming with the rise of LLMs and AI-native tools. Kirk shares his journey from working at Microsoft and General Motors to building Graflit—a platform designed to make unstructured data as usable as structured data.
News and Useful Reads
Donald Trump's Return-to-Office Mandate Is Going Terribly
In a surprise to no one, Trump’s RTO mandate isn’t working. Like most return-to-office initiatives, its planners did not think it through and federal employees are dealing with the fallout—from no seats to no office supplies.
One effect of all this, many federal employees tell WIRED, is that they are traveling long distances to spend all of their time in virtual meetings.
Trump excludes smartphones, computers, chips from higher tariffs
The drama with tariffs continued this week, with the Trump regime walking back most of the tariffs. While the trade war with China escalated, certain items coming from China have also now been excluded from tariffs.
The Trump administration has excluded “smartphones, computers, and other electronics,” even those imported from China, from tariffs it levied last week, reports Bloomberg. The exemptions don’t free them from all tariffs, though, as the outlet says others from before Trump’s April 9th tariffs still apply.
The world may be entering its ‘sell America’ era
If you missed it this week, the US stock market sold off significantly. But the US bond market also sold off. Typically, when stocks decline because of market worries, the bond market is the place for investors. But investors seemed like they were getting out of US assets completely. Which isn’t good for the US.
It’s too soon to tell if the “sell America” risk, as analysts call it, is the beginning of a new global economic order or just a phase. But anxiety about the US economy is growing.
This is called "capital flight"
In other words, for the first time in many decades, the U.S. has experienced capital flight. And if it continues, the consequences for the U.S. economy could be absolutely dire.
Microsoft is about to launch Recall for real this time
Recall was pulled quickly because of privacy and security concerns. But Microsoft is ready to try it again.
Microsoft is starting to gradually roll out a full release of Recall, its feature that captures screenshots of what you do on a Copilot Plus PC to find again later, to Windows Insiders in the Release Preview channel, according to a blog post published Thursday.
OpenAI gives ChatGPT a memory boost
Starting today, memory in ChatGPT can now reference all of your past chats to provide more personalized responses, drawing on your preferences and interests to make it even more helpful for writing, getting advice, learning, and beyond.
Other Interesting Finds
The Schopenhauer Principle: How pessimism can help steer your life
I’m not sure if I’d call myself a pessimist or an optimist. I swing between the two and call it realism. But maybe there is a case to be pessimistic.
Schopenhauer argued that compassion is the root of morality. And we can only be compassionate to other people if we appreciate two things. First, that everyone is suffering. Second, that their suffering is serious. Only when we accept these two pessimistic things can we start to be there for other people.