The Good Thing #2
Hello and welcome to second edition of The Good Thing, Mark Pesce's monthly(ish) newsletter filled with all sorts of good things, new things, big things, wonderful things, recent things, upcoming things, free things and fun things.
Welcome back! (Some of you are new, so this is issue #1 for you 🤣) You're receiving The Good Thing because you said you'd be happy to receive a monthly(ish) email of interesting things. (You may have signed up for 'A Practical Futurist' - and this is that, too.)
You can unsubscribe below.
Big Thing
The world seems a bit over-fixated on the topic of artificial intelligence. Since the release of ChatGPT - only three years ago - it has felt as though we've been rapidly preparing for Things To Be Different. Mostly that hasn't gone to plan - because of the immaturity of the technology, multiplied by our own juvenile fumbling around.
In the last few months there's a growing sense that we've turned a corner. The very latest 'frontier' models - ChatGPT 5.1 Pro, Claude Opus 4.5 and, most notably, Gemini 3 Pro - feel as though they've crossed a threshold: always imperfect but, in the right circumstances, with the right task, profoundly useful.
Case in point: I spent a few hours on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday of this week 'vibe coding' an app using Google's newly released Antigravity tool. Antigravity mixes the power of a programming development environment (or IDE) with the 'agentic' capacity for AI to pursue a goal. That's not entirely new - tools like this have been maturing over the last year - but Antigravity now works so well (powered by Gemini 3 Pro) that I was able to feed it the VRML 1.0 specification (from 1994!) with an instruction to write a VRML 1.0 'browser' for macOS - and not much more guidance than that.
I'll detail that process in my next column for The Register, but the upshot is this: what would have taken weeks-to-months compressed into about 10 hours (often spent waiting for the computer to finish its 'thinking'). That I could be so productive, so quickly - and, frankly, so effortlessly - means that 'vibe coding' is no longer the punchline to a joke.
Instead, it's going to fundamentally transform both the effort to create and therefore the cost of highly customised software. Software isn't likely to be free unless you DIY - and not everyone will be up for the kind of 'steering' needed to get the best results. We are on the threshold of a 'Cambrian Explosion' of extreme diversity in software, as hyperempowered creatives use these new tools to craft things no one ever imagined.
That will be wonderful (and, quite possibly, terrible).
Free Thing
The most interesting book I've read in some time, Emad Mostaque's The Last Economy describes an economy in a rapid 'phase transition' from the dregs of Late Capitalism into something...quite different. I don't agree with the whole of his argument; Emad gets the diagnosis right, but his proposed solutions feel a bit prescriptive. Nevertheless, it's an important read, and has changed the way I think about both our present and our future.
Emad has made The Last Economy free in a wealth of formats. Grab it here.
VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
Wonderful Things
Three stories you might have missed that are really quite amazing...
‘Mind-captioning’ AI decodes brain activity to turn thoughts into text
Scientists reverse kidney damage in mice, hope for humans next | ScienceDaily
Why Solarpunk is already happening in Africa
New Things
THE NEXT BILLION CARS 'year in review' with co-host Sally Dominguez and Special Correspondent Drew Smith - quite a year it has been! Mapping it out took two episodes, here and here.
This Week in Startups Australia continues its new series here - with startups on both sides of the Tasman!
My latest column for The Register reminds us to 'Always Be Mentoring'.
THE WEEKING has links to three articles worth digging into. WEEKING #1, WEEKING #2. More to come.
Recent Things
Web Directions NEXT: For well over a year I've been working on a book; the first part, titled 'And Now For Something Completely Human' premiered at 2024 Web Directions Next. On the 21st of November 2025, I delivered part two, 'Nobody Knows Anything (About Business)'. Everything has already changed about how we work - yet we act as though nothing has changed. What is that telling us?
It went well - and a video should be coming at some point.
USANZ: Gave a fun keynote to a roomful of urologists in training at the Urological Society of Australia and New Zealand trainee week. They asked lots of insightful questions about AI!
BEYOND 2025: Do you remember the shows Toward 2000 and Beyond 2000? The producers have over 5000 segments from 15 years of broadcasts - which they're now 'remixing' into 'what ever happened to that innovation?' shows. I've been providing 'colour commentary' - you'll see me on the telly sometime in 2026!
Upcoming Things
December is fairly quiet - but I'll finally be launching a series titled 'The Agetech Aeon' on The Next Billion Seconds podcast. The first of that series drops next Wednesday, 3 December, be on the lookout for it!
And then... JANUARY!!!!
CES! Every other year I fly to Las Vegas to immerse myself in the latest gadgets and innovations at the Consumer Electronics Show. In 2024 I was utterly unprepared for the wave of Agetech innovations - including the absolutely, utterly brilliant GyroGear. I'll be there again for the 2026 show, which runs from the 4th to the 9th of January, covering the event for both The Register and (trumpet fanfare) Radio New Zealand!
If you're going to be at CES, reach out - let's try to meet up!
Next Thing
See you just before the holiday break - with more good things!
Fun Thing
May your life be filled with good things!
Mark