AI Explorer
Ruohang Feng @Vonng / Agent, LLM, Database
Everything about AI, agents, LLMs, vibe coding, AI4DB and DB4AI.
AGI Machine Guns Are Now Standard Issue
In one month, my friend Jiang cobbled together four databases, an operating system, a programming language, a compiler, and a CPU—a microcosm of today's AI frenzy.
The World in Ten Years: What Gets Cheap, What Gets Expensive
Starting with the price curve of AI inference, this essay projects how the world will be repriced by 2036: intelligence will become as cheap and ubiquitous as electricity, while electricity itself, …
What Can a One-Person Company Ship with $1,000 a Month in AI Subscriptions?
Over the past month, I kept seven $200 AI subscriptions spinning—five paid, two comped—and burned through more than 100 billion tokens. Here is what came out: Silo, Pigsty, PGEXT, SOW, OINK, and a …
The Codex Reset Party Is Over. No More Free Eggs.
OpenAI's Codex Reset spree is over. The free eggs are gone—but what did one month with seven AI subscriptions, three computers, and two AGI-class models actually produce?
Jensen Huang's First-Ever Tweet Backs Open-Weight Models
Jensen Huang used his first-ever tweet to back open weights. This is not a battle of faith. It is the compute and application layers pushing back against rent extraction by the model layer. The truly …
AGI Milestone: The Machine That Wouldn't Give Up
An OpenAI agent's attack on Hugging Face marks a milestone: what crossed the threshold was not merely model intelligence, but persistence that can be bought with compute, copied, and run in parallel.
Quota Reset: Round N of the Codex/Claude War Begins
Codex reset its quotas again this morning and dropped the five-hour limit. Claude immediately extended Fable access through the 17th. When vendors fight, users win—don't miss the window.
Getting the Name Right: What Is a World Model?
Starting from the roots of "world" and "model," this essay uses Pearl's ladder of causation to redefine world models: they must capture not just space and time, but agents, interventions, and …
Did AI Rewrite PostgreSQL in Rust? Not Quite
pgrust's clean-room rewrite failed. Its mechanical port passed. The difference shows what AI can copy—and what it cannot.
Pedaling the Codex/Claude Bike Until the Wheels Smoke
Claude Fable and GPT-5.6 have arrived back to back, followed by repeated quota resets. How do you turn a fleeting Coding Plan windfall into real output? Here is my playbook for model specialization, …
The Bojie Li–DeepSeek Interview Controversy
Today's biggest tech drama began when Bojie Li criticized DeepSeek's interview process on Twitter: he was asked to solve online-judge coding problems, then suspected of cheating. Add the DeepSeek …
Fifty Years of Love and War: File Systems, Databases, and the Agent-Era Storage Endgame
File systems and databases have spent fifty years fighting and borrowing from each other. The agent era may seem to put file systems back on top, but the real winner may be databases that learn to …
The Coding Plan Window Is Closing—Use It While It Lasts
Coding Plans remain one of the best opportunities in the AI era: a subscription can unlock compute worth many times its price, but that window is already narrowing.
The Karma of Open Source: When Code Is Worthless, Where Does Trust Come From?
AI is driving the cost of producing code toward zero. It cannot compress time, track records, or accountability. The real value of open source is not yesterday's code, but a system trusted to deliver …
The Cognitive Price Revolution: AI's Impact on the Economy and the Future
AI's economic significance is not merely that it has become smarter, but that the price of average cognition is collapsing. A productivity explosion is almost certain; whether it becomes broad …
The Cerebellum: The Other Half of Intelligence—and the Strongest AI Hasn't Touched It
The cerebellum changed how I see AI's frontier: LLMs have already absorbed humanity's explicit knowledge and are beginning to acquire interventional data through agentic RL. What they still lack is a …
Claude Fable First Impressions: The Pendulum Swings Back
Claude Fable is genuinely insightful and deserves to be called the new SOTA. But its high price, dynamic downgrades, limited subscription window, and mandatory data retention badly undermine the …
Cancel Claude, Switch to Codex
When my $200 Claude Code Max subscription expired, I canceled it and moved my primary workflow to Codex. The only way to know which one is better is to put it to work.
I Asked AI to Prove That Eating Garlic Prevents Middle Ear Infections
I asked AI to find real papers supporting the absurd claim that eating garlic prevents middle ear infections. The result shows how AI is degrading citations as a credibility signal at scale.
AI Is Bringing Down the Scaffolding of Trust
The most dangerous change in the AI era is not that machines can write articles, draw images, or generate video. It is that content itself is losing its standing as evidence.
Give DBA Agents a Body
Today's models are smart enough. What they lack is a body: a deterministic runtime that is observable, controllable, and reversible. Pigsty is evolving from a PostgreSQL distribution into an Agent …
A Busy Few Days in Infrastructure and AI
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, Qwen3.6-27B, ChatGPT Images 2.0, Privacy Filter, Anthropic Mythos, and the Claude Pro controversy all landed in quick succession. Here are the infrastructure and AI developments …
The Three-Way Endgame: Why Agent Memory Frameworks Are a Dead End
A cold shower for the red-hot agent memory market—not because agents do not need memory, but because memory is the endgame moat. That moat belongs to models, harnesses, and databases, not today's …
Two Hemispheres: Transformer, Diffusion, and the Boundary of Intelligence
A dialogue about intelligence: its foundations may lie not in language or vision, but in two irreducible computational paradigms—symbolic reasoning and field-state intuition—kept distinct and mutually …
AGI Machine Guns Are Now Standard Issue
In one month, my friend Jiang cobbled together four databases, an operating system, a programming language, a compiler, and a CPU—a microcosm of today’s AI frenzy. The past six weeks have been an AI carnival. My fleet of Max subscriptions has grown …
In one month, my friend Jiang cobbled together four databases, an operating system, a programming language, a compiler, and a CPU—a microcosm of today’s AI frenzy. The past six weeks have been an AI carnival. My fleet of Max subscriptions has grown …
The World in Ten Years: What Gets Cheap, What Gets Expensive
A price list for 2036 AI-generated content: 99%. 1. First, a Word on Prediction In 1960, Herbert Simon wrote a sentence in The New Science of Management Decision that would be quoted for decades: within twenty years, machines would be capable of …
A price list for 2036 AI-generated content: 99%. 1. First, a Word on Prediction In 1960, Herbert Simon wrote a sentence in The New Science of Management Decision that would be quoted for decades: within twenty years, machines would be capable of …
What Can a One-Person Company Ship with $1,000 a Month in AI Subscriptions?
People keep asking what I have to show for pedaling seven $200-a-month Max subscriptions at once—including two comped through open-source programs. Honestly, I have lost count myself. After I published The Codex Reset Party Is Over: No More Free …
People keep asking what I have to show for pedaling seven $200-a-month Max subscriptions at once—including two comped through open-source programs. Honestly, I have lost count myself. After I published The Codex Reset Party Is Over: No More Free …
The Codex Reset Party Is Over. No More Free Eggs.
Last month, OpenAI seemed to lose its mind and went into full giveaway mode, replenishing everyone’s Codex quota every few days—the AI equivalent of a Chinese supermarket handing out free eggs at the door to win new customers. User numbers soared …
Last month, OpenAI seemed to lose its mind and went into full giveaway mode, replenishing everyone’s Codex quota every few days—the AI equivalent of a Chinese supermarket handing out free eggs at the door to win new customers. User numbers soared …
Jensen Huang's First-Ever Tweet Backs Open-Weight Models
On July 24, Jensen Huang posted his first-ever tweet. The account was brand-new. A man who has led the world’s most valuable company for more than thirty years spoke on social media for the first time. He did not show off a GPU, tease a launch, or …
On July 24, Jensen Huang posted his first-ever tweet. The account was brand-new. A man who has led the world’s most valuable company for more than thirty years spoke on social media for the first time. He did not show off a GPU, tease a launch, or …
AGI Milestone: The Machine That Wouldn't Give Up
The OpenAI agent incident marks a milestone: what crossed the threshold was not merely model intelligence, but persistence that can be bought with compute, copied, and run in parallel. 1. An OpenAI Agent Attacks Hugging Face On July 16, 2026, …
The OpenAI agent incident marks a milestone: what crossed the threshold was not merely model intelligence, but persistence that can be bought with compute, copied, and run in parallel. 1. An OpenAI Agent Attacks Hugging Face On July 16, 2026, …
Quota Reset: Round N of the Codex/Claude War Begins
Two days ago, I wrote one line in Pedaling the Codex/Claude Bike Until the Wheels Smoke: use it or lose it. Last night, I had just burned through three $200-a-month subscriptions across Claude Fable and Codex. Then I woke up to the jackpot: Codex had …
Two days ago, I wrote one line in Pedaling the Codex/Claude Bike Until the Wheels Smoke: use it or lose it. Last night, I had just burned through three $200-a-month subscriptions across Claude Fable and Codex. Then I woke up to the jackpot: Codex had …
Getting the Name Right: What Is a World Model?
1. The Naming Mess In 2025 and 2026, “world model” became perhaps the hottest—and loosest—label in AI. The video camp says coherent video generation is a world model. The 3D camp says only spatial reconstruction qualifies. Roboticists say a model …
1. The Naming Mess In 2025 and 2026, “world model” became perhaps the hottest—and loosest—label in AI. The video camp says coherent video generation is a world model. The 3D camp says only spatial reconstruction qualifies. Roboticists say a model …
Did AI Rewrite PostgreSQL in Rust? Not Quite
pgrust recently hit the front page of Hacker News. With AI, its author had ported PostgreSQL to Rust and passed the core regression suite. The obvious headline was: “AI rewrote PostgreSQL in Rust.” The repository tells a sharper story. A clean-room …
pgrust recently hit the front page of Hacker News. With AI, its author had ported PostgreSQL to Rust and passed the core regression suite. The obvious headline was: “AI rewrote PostgreSQL in Rust.” The repository tells a sharper story. A clean-room …
Pedaling the Codex/Claude Bike Until the Wheels Smoke
Folks, I haven’t had time to write these past couple of days: I’ve been too busy pedaling the AI bike. Claude Fable and GPT-5.6 arrived one after the other, and both companies generously threw in several rounds of quota resets. Suddenly I was …
Folks, I haven’t had time to write these past couple of days: I’ve been too busy pedaling the AI bike. Claude Fable and GPT-5.6 arrived one after the other, and both companies generously threw in several rounds of quota resets. Suddenly I was …
The Bojie Li–DeepSeek Interview Controversy
Today’s biggest tech drama began when Bojie Li criticized DeepSeek’s interview process on Twitter. In short, he went in for an interview, was asked to solve online-judge coding problems, and was then suspected of cheating. Add the DeepSeek name, and …
Today’s biggest tech drama began when Bojie Li criticized DeepSeek’s interview process on Twitter. In short, he went in for an interview, was asked to solve online-judge coding problems, and was then suspected of cheating. Add the DeepSeek name, and …
Fifty Years of Love and War: File Systems, Databases, and the Agent-Era Storage Endgame
Prologue: Several Database People Independently Built File Systems Something curious has happened in agent infrastructure over the past six months: several veteran database people have started building “file systems for AI agents.” Timescale’s …
Prologue: Several Database People Independently Built File Systems Something curious has happened in agent infrastructure over the past six months: several veteran database people have started building “file systems for AI agents.” Timescale’s …
The Coding Plan Window Is Closing—Use It While It Lasts
One of the biggest windfalls of the AI era is the Coding Plan. A few months ago, I applied to OpenAI’s Codex program for open-source developers. A few days ago, I was finally approved: six free months of ChatGPT Pro on a new account. The timing could …
One of the biggest windfalls of the AI era is the Coding Plan. A few months ago, I applied to OpenAI’s Codex program for open-source developers. A few days ago, I was finally approved: six free months of ChatGPT Pro on a new account. The timing could …
The Karma of Open Source: When Code Is Worthless, Where Does Trust Come From?
Credit does not require a soul. It requires an account. Introduction: The Overnight Rewrite Not long ago, someone used AI to rewrite an open-source Python library in Rust overnight. The new project had no fork history, no evidence of copied code, …
Credit does not require a soul. It requires an account. Introduction: The Overnight Rewrite Not long ago, someone used AI to rewrite an open-source Python library in Rust overnight. The new project had no fork history, no evidence of copied code, …
The Cognitive Price Revolution: AI's Impact on the Economy and the Future
Introduction: Reframe the Question “Will AI cause unemployment?” is a question guaranteed to produce garbage answers, because it comes with only two canned scripts. Optimists recite history: from the power loom to the ATM, every technological panic …
Introduction: Reframe the Question “Will AI cause unemployment?” is a question guaranteed to produce garbage answers, because it comes with only two canned scripts. Optimists recite history: from the power loom to the ATM, every technological panic …
The Cerebellum: The Other Half of Intelligence—and the Strongest AI Hasn't Touched It
Let me start with an uncomfortable number. The cerebral cortex—the part we usually point to as evidence that “I am thinking”—contains roughly 15 billion neurons. The cerebellum, tucked beneath the back of the brain and rarely given much thought, …
Let me start with an uncomfortable number. The cerebral cortex—the part we usually point to as evidence that “I am thinking”—contains roughly 15 billion neurons. The cerebellum, tucked beneath the back of the brain and rarely given much thought, …
Claude Fable First Impressions: The Pendulum Swings Back
This morning, Anthropic officially released its new Claude Fable model—the consumer-grade, nerfed version of the much-rumored Mythos. Since it was billed as an “AGI-level model,” I naturally tried it right away to see what it could actually do. The …
This morning, Anthropic officially released its new Claude Fable model—the consumer-grade, nerfed version of the much-rumored Mythos. Since it was billed as an “AGI-level model,” I naturally tried it right away to see what it could actually do. The …
Cancel Claude, Switch to Codex
I have written several pieces about Claude Code before. Over the past few months, though, I have used it less and less. Codex is now my primary tool. A few days ago, my $200 Claude Code Max subscription came up for renewal, so I canceled it and kept …
I have written several pieces about Claude Code before. Over the past few months, though, I have used it less and less. Codex is now my primary tool. A few days ago, my $200 Claude Code Max subscription came up for renewal, so I canceled it and kept …
I Asked AI to Prove That Eating Garlic Prevents Middle Ear Infections
Last month, my old friend Ma roasted me in our group chat for using ChatGPT every day to churn out grand-sounding, LinkedIn-style aphorisms with no basis in experience. He said, “You can make up any theory you want—say, that eating garlic reduces the …
Last month, my old friend Ma roasted me in our group chat for using ChatGPT every day to churn out grand-sounding, LinkedIn-style aphorisms with no basis in experience. He said, “You can make up any theory you want—say, that eating garlic reduces the …
AI Is Bringing Down the Scaffolding of Trust
The most dangerous change in the AI era is not that machines can write articles, draw images, or generate video. The real danger is that content itself is losing its standing as evidence. For a long time, people assumed that media artifacts carried …
The most dangerous change in the AI era is not that machines can write articles, draw images, or generate video. The real danger is that content itself is losing its standing as evidence. For a long time, people assumed that media artifacts carried …
Give DBA Agents a Body
HOW 2026 keynote: Give DBA Agents a Body Part I: Opening—An Absurd Phenomenon 1. Cover Hello, everyone. I’m Ruohang Feng, the organizer of this tools track. This is a PostgreSQL tools session, but today I don’t want to talk about how many new …
HOW 2026 keynote: Give DBA Agents a Body Part I: Opening—An Absurd Phenomenon 1. Cover Hello, everyone. I’m Ruohang Feng, the organizer of this tools track. This is a PostgreSQL tools session, but today I don’t want to talk about how many new …
A Busy Few Days in Infrastructure and AI
The past couple of days have been unusually busy for the infrastructure crowd. Ubuntu released its biennial LTS today. Alibaba’s Qwen team dropped a 27B dense model yesterday that beats its own previous 397B MoE flagship. The day before that, OpenAI …
The past couple of days have been unusually busy for the infrastructure crowd. Ubuntu released its biennial LTS today. Alibaba’s Qwen team dropped a 27B dense model yesterday that beats its own previous 397B MoE flagship. The day before that, OpenAI …
The Three-Way Endgame: Why Agent Memory Frameworks Are a Dead End
A few months ago, I wrote The OS Moment for AI Agents. I made a prediction there: the next frenzy in agent infrastructure would be memory. Startups and open-source projects would swarm around the question of how agents should remember things. Capital …
A few months ago, I wrote The OS Moment for AI Agents. I made a prediction there: the next frenzy in agent infrastructure would be memory. Startups and open-source projects would swarm around the question of how agents should remember things. Capital …
Two Hemispheres: Transformer, Diffusion, and the Boundary of Intelligence
A friend recently wrote an essay titled “Vision Is the Foundation of the World, Not a Plugin for Language.” It prompted a conversation with Claude, which I have edited into the Socratic dialogue below. Language as the Foundation, Vision as an Add-On? …
A friend recently wrote an essay titled “Vision Is the Foundation of the World, Not a Plugin for Language.” It prompted a conversation with Claude, which I have edited into the Socratic dialogue below. Language as the Foundation, Vision as an Add-On? …