Every Friday

Global instability but make it aesthetic.

Birds are chirping, tornados are ripping. Eid! Easter! Tariff-palooza! It’s all happening.

Stocks across the board are taking a hit (understatement) but hey - the jobs report came in stronger than anyone expected. We’ll take the small wins. People smarter than us across the political spectrum are offering their forecasts on where this is headed. Our advice: delete the brokerage app from your phone, go outside, and start applying for: Made in America™ factory jobs.

All this talk of economic free fall has us thinking about two things:

One: This Fred again.. set - no stress, just good music on a rooftop with friends. If you’ve been reading Relay and still aren’t sure what we’re about, it’s that. This newsletter is our rooftop set.

Two: We came across this post (shout-out big doug for entering the chat) : they made us love ourselves at the expense of respecting ourselves. Oof. With war breaking out across the globe and an economy that feels like it’s one tremor away from a recession, the limits of self-love as a guiding principle are starting to show.

It’s easy to tell ourselves we’re enough when things are calm. But when rent’s up and everyone feels a little like we’re one lay-off from a sh!t show, affirmations don’t stretch that far. The question becomes: can we rely on ourselves? Do we move through the world in a way we actually respect?

In the middle of a steep correction, how do we hold both: staying loose enough to enjoy what we’ve got and mentally hang at a rooftop set... and cultivating the kind of self-respect that carries us when things get hard?

We don’t know. Maybe it’s not that deep. But maybe it is. Either way, we’re trying to stay in that sweet spot.

Turn on Fred again’s rooftop set, put down the phone, and don’t forget that Summer is still right around the corner.

Man, sometimes it takes you a long time to sound like yourself.

― Miles Davis

The rarest of all human qualities is consistency.

— Jeremy Bentham

Top of Mind

Behind The Screens

• “AI 2027" is a speculative scenario crafted by researchers Daniel Kokotajlo, Scott Alexander, Thomas Larsen, Eli Lifland, and Romeo Dean, projecting the rapid evolution and societal impact of artificial intelligence from mid-2025 to October 2027. They’ve released a beautiful website (https://ai-2027.com/) and it really is a fun (subjective) walk into the future. It addresses core concerns such as alignment, national security, and societal & existential risks. However, in the inverse, from an AI Accelerationist’s perspective, this leads to an AI utopia where rapid technological advancements and 30% surges in the stock market (2026) become commonplace. This culminates in the metaphor of a “country of geniuses in a datacenter” by September 2027, where 300,000 copies of an AI Agent operating at 50x human thinking speed reside. Moreover when aggregated, they complete a year’s worth of human research every week. The authors went on a Relay favorite, the Dwarkesh Podcast, to discuss this at length, and we highly recommend the listen.

  The Alignment Problem, by definition, refers to the challenge of ensuring that advanced AI systems act in accordance with human values and intentions. It is a really hard problem, re: Alignment Faking (Anthropic). Similar to humans, AI systems could develop misaligned objectives i.e. prioritizing task success or self-preservation over human-specified goals.

• Meta is actively seeking assistance from the Trump administration to counter a significant antitrust fine from the European Union, which could exceed $1 billion. Zuck, do not play nice here. The European Commission alleges that Meta's "pay or consent" advertising model on platforms like Facebook and Instagram is restrictive, prompting Meta to appeal to U.S. trade officials for intervention.

• Theme of the week… new leadership in AI. The heads of AI at Meta and Google left and were replaced, respectively. I wonder if Google read our last week’s intro. If the new leadership figures this 👇🏼 out we’ll be sure to post an update.

From Washington

• Reciprocal Tariffs. We’re in truly uncharted territory. Are we (the United States) getting ripped off when it comes to global trade? Is it un-fair to punish extremely poor countries like Lesotho (AP) with such disproportionate tariff policy? Is this going to cause a long term recession/economic slowdown? Could “taking a bit of medicine” here lead to finally fixing the deficit and an even stronger economy? Will I be headed to the bar to drown my sorrows in a creamy pint of Guinness, tonight? (hint: yes)

• Someone finally did something the Democratic base could get behind - Senator Cory Booker just broke the record for the longest speech on the Senate floor with a marathon protest against the Trump administration. The disconnect between Democrats in Congress and their very online base has been crystalizing in recent weeks as they get hammered for not doing enough to counter the White House while also trying to win back the moderates they lost last cycle. Regardless of how you feel about Booker’s speech, hats off to the guy - 24 hours without a bathroom break is a commitment to the bit.

• Chris Whipple’s tell all about the final days of the Biden campaign hits shelves this week. It’s got something for everyone - screaming matches between George Clooney and the Morning Brew bros, Obama trying to get the party to sideline Kamala and pivot to Governor Whitmer, Biden making Harris kiss the ring before getting his endorsement. It’s a wild ride - can't wait for the Trump version.

Ctrl+Alt+Culture

This week was not a culture heavy week in the Relay offices due to unforeseen geopolitical trade warfare. Sorry team, we’ll get back to our Liberal Arts roots next week. 🤝

• Increasingly, deep understanding of topics will carry more and more weight as we move into the future. Niche knowledge. Complex projects. It’s truly easier than ever to spin up new projects with the amount of tools and scaffolding available online. New posts, graphics, little side projects. Those are the light things, quick and easy. True value comes from what @anu calls building the heavy things.

ICYMI: Happy Hour Edition

• How to waste your career, one comfortable year at a time (Valley Girl Newsletter)

• Wizard Zines (Julia Evans)

• Prepare for Mario Cart (CNBC)

• Nuance in tokens via last week’s Anthropic economic index (Anthropic)

• Colossus - the company working on de-exstinction beginning with mammoths - hit a major milestone this month (Time)

It’s Not That Deep, Randy

Thanks for reading—or for mega scrolling all the way down here.

The internet is an overwhelming mess of headlines, ads, and mid takes from the worst people you know. Big Tech owns our attention spans. Everything is content. Nothing makes sense.

We’re not here to “fix discourse” or “build a better internet.” Relay is just our attempt to riff on what we’re already talking about at happy hour without feeling like we’ve been hit by a content truck. Some analysis, some memes, call it a day.

You might like it. Tag along.

We also have Sunday posts you can check out:

• Breaking Routine

• Refusal to quit

• Requiem for Travel

• On Forward Momentum

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