😺 Are we about to enter "AI Winter??"

Welcome, humans.

Well, if you thought your job as a professional home organizer was secure, Boston Dynamics just put you on notice:

Getting a Leg up with End-to-end Neural Networks | Boston Dynamics

Now, if you want to see some other impressive feats of robot dynamism, check out this Unitree bot who won the gold medal for the 1500m run at the World Humanoid Robot games (took it 6 mins and 34 seconds).

Perhaps more impressive? This robot who won the solo dance competition (and yes, there was a solo dance competition).

Where is all this going? Somebody just dreamed up one possible future via MidJourney in a post called Cyberpunk dream life… Man, after seeing a flood of Coco delivery bots zipping around in Los Angeles lately, we can totally picture it…

Here’s what happened in AI today:

• The market sold off some AI stocks yesterday due to “AI winter” jitters.
• Google's Pixel 10 gets on-device AI with Magic Cue assistant.
• IBM and NASA launched Surya AI for solar flare prediction.
• Epic Systems launched three AI healthcare tools.

Advertise in The Neuron here

Markets tested the AI faith yesterday… here’s Meta’s shake‑up, the new DeepSeek drama, and Altman’s “bubble vs. trillions” paradox, explained.

DEEP DIVE: Are we about to enter “AI Winter?”

Is AI a bubble? Or the most important thing to happen in human history? Is it a bad business model—or the last business model? We’ve been chewing on this (as has the world) because, frankly, it’s the biggest question in tech right now.

First, what happened on Wednesday?

• The S&P 500 and Nasdaq slipped as investors cooled on AI trades after an MIT analysis claimed 95% of generative‑AI pilots aren't moving the P&L.
• Meta reorganized its Superintelligence Labs into four teams while downsizing its AI department.
• DeepSeek published a V3.1 update to its flagship model that fueled new release speculation.
• Sam Altman said AI is in a bubble, yet projected trillions in future data‑center spend.

Why this matters: AI infrastructure IS the economy right now. AI data centers are adding $93-163 billion to America's economy this year, and without them, US growth would be nearly flat.

So is this peak AI hype? Engineer Gergely Orosz thinks so, citing deals like Eight Sleep's $100M “AI mattress” round. Meanwhile, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei argues AI labs aren't money pits—they're “models-as-companies” with 9-12 month payback periods. Tech critic Ed Zitron disagrees, warning of a “subprime AI crisis.”

The real question: Can AI actually deliver? Steve Newman's insight: maybe it all comes down to “sample efficiency,” or how fast AI can learn new skills. If AI can't learn efficiently enough to justify these valuations, bubble concerns are valid. If it can, we're still early. But which is it…?

Read our full deep dive on the website for more.

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Prompt Tip of the Day.

Matt Pocock resurfaced this “context engineering” template from Anthropic’s Prompting 101 Video.

It's a 10-step framework that turns messy prompts into a structure fit for working with agents. Here's the breakdown:

Start with (1) Task context and (2) Tone context to set the stage. Add (3) Background data/documents, then (4) Detailed task description & rules. Include (5) Examples to show what you want, plus (6) Conversation history for context. Drop in your (7) Immediate task or request, tell the AI to (8) Think step by step, specify (9) Output formatting, and optionally add a (10) Prefilled response to guide the start.

^ You can copy and paste that along with the screenshot above and ask your AI of choice to format it into a prompt template you can use for context engineering with Claude Code!

Check out all of our prompt tips of the day from August here!

Treats to Try.

*Asterisk = from our partners. Advertise in The Neuron here.

1. *Luma AI transforms your text into videos and lets you completely restyle any video's background, characters, or setting in post-production.
2. Gizmo lets you create tiny interactive apps on your phone using photos, text, and touch without any coding—just snap, tap, and remix to make playful mini-experiences you can share (new launch, pretty cool)..
3. Uplift builds voice models for underserved languages like Urdu, Sindhi, and Balochi, so you can create voice apps for the billions of people who speak them.
4. April connects to your Gmail and Google Calendar so you can ask it questions while driving, like “what's my first meeting today?” without touching your phone (Apple only right now).
5. Mirror combines all personality tests (Human Design, MBTI, Enneagram, even astrology) into one unified profile and runs compatibility reports with anyone.
6. Google Cloud introduced MLE-STAR, a machine learning engineering agent that achieved medal-winning performances in 64% of Kaggle competition benchmarks.

Around the Horn.

• Google’s Pixel 10 leans hard into on‑device AI with the cross‑app assistant Magic Cue and an upgraded, camera‑aware Gemini Live.
  • On‑device + cross‑app: Tensor G5 runs Gemini Nano for in‑flow suggestions and real‑time Voice Translate, plus visual guidance, and an AI-powered Gemini for Home will replace Assistant on Nest devices.
• The NFL and Microsoft extended their partnership to deploy AI across league operations, distributing 2,500 Surface Copilot+ PCs with on-device AI processing to all NFL teams.
• IBM and NASA released Surya, an AI model predicting solar flares and mass ejections with 16% improved accuracy and an extra hour of warning time.
• Epic Systems unveiled three major AI tools: Art (physician assistant), Emmie (patient chatbot), and Penny (revenue management), with over 100 AI projects in development.

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Thursday Trivia

One is real, and one is AI. Which is which? (vote below!)

A

B

Which is AI, and which is real?

The answer is below, but place your vote to see how your guess everyone else (no cheating now!)

How well did you do on last month’s trivia? Check out ALL the answers and results here… you might even see your own comment featured!

A Cat’s Commentary.

Trivia answer: A is real, and B is AI.