What Happens in the Gap
The material process of technological transformation—why it takes decades and what actually has to happen during that time.
thepuzzleanditspieces.substack.com/p/what-happe...

LLMs Are Following the Expert Systems Playbook—But the Score Is Different
Why the 56% Wage Premium Goes to Navigators, Not Builders

The Electrification Productivity Puzzle
Why it took thirty years for the lights to turn on for the global economy
thepuzzleanditspieces.substack.com/p/the-electr...

The post's strength is how it grounds speculation in deployment realities: human support costs, safety regulations, capital requirements, and the basic physics of falling robots. It's engineering judgment applied to hype cycles.

6. Quantum computing nuance: He distinguishes digital (error-prone, oversold) from analog quantum computers that actually model physical systems—arguing the latter will be the real winners.

5. LLM boxing: His most important insight might be that the action isn't in bigger models but in the "boxing in" mechanisms—guardrails, explainability, evaluation systems. He sees the arms race shifting to control systems, not raw capability.

4. EV adoption miss: He correctly notes that even his conservative 30%-by-2027 prediction now looks wildly optimistic—Q3 2025 hit only 10.5% US market share, and that was front-loaded before tax credits expired.

3. Realism on humanoids: His takedown is devastating—the conjunction of 12 false premises that would need to ALL be true for current hype to materialise. Safety issues, pathetic dexterity, teleoperation dependencies, and absurd scaling claims are all meticulously documented.

2. Definition-drift: He nails how "self-driving cars," "humanoid robots," & "flying cars" have all quietly had their definitions watered down to match what's achievable rather than original promises. Waymo's "remote operators" reveal the gap between marketed autonomy and reality.

1. Measured self-assessment: He acknowledges being "a little too optimistic" overall, which is notable since many dismissed his 2018 predictions as overly pessimistic. This intellectual honesty is rare.

Predictions Scorecard, 2026 January 01
"Nothing is ever as good as it first seems and nothing is ever as bad as it first seems."
buff.ly/LXrqKYY

A few key themes that stand.