Re:Building Together EP 333 — AI NEWS

Host: CEELOS (@CEELOSFIGG) with co-hosts Baked (@Bakedmetax) and ValerieKates (@valeriekates_) · Thu, Sep 24 2026 · 1:16:09 · ~12 speakers on mic

TL;DR

• Thursday's AI-news format returned: AR Pokémon cards, Meta's $1,300 glasses, and Meta's "Muse Charm" keychain AI agent, all framed around one question — is AI shifting from "ask me a question" to "let me help you do something"? [6:38]
• A solo developer's prototype turns physical Pokémon cards into AR battles through Snap's specs; the room immediately pivoted to the Yu-Gi-Oh! childhood fantasy and what it means for NFTs and TCGs. [14:21]
• Meta's glasses put the compute in a pocket puck and 5K micro-OLED on your face — the room mostly said the price is survivable, the comfort and the "walking around distracted" part less so. [26:30]
• A long, genuinely good tangent on QR menus, handheld POS tablets, and whether hospitality is being automated out of existence — with two actual restaurant operators (Jed and Blue) on the mic. [44:27]
• Dingus is already running Meta's Muse, has it reading his email and flagging login attempts, and says plug-and-play agents are what the public's been waiting for. [1:01:59]
• Recurring thesis from CEELOS, Slick Ric, and Blue: learn the tools while they're free, but don't outsource the skill — "they can take it away from you."

Highlights

[6:38] The framing. CEELOS opened episode 333 (an angel number, he noted — growth, alignment, and a nudge forward) with the week's thesis: AI is leaving the chatbot and moving into glasses, keychains, and phones that can see. "AI is moving from ask me a question to let me help you do something."

[10:55] Slick Ric's black box. At a Niners game he dropped merch into an unmanned black box that recognized every item instantly, no scanning, no cashier. His takeaway wasn't awe so much as caution: use it, don't depend on it, because anything given to you can be taken away — the most-repeated idea of the hour.

[14:21] Pokémon cards that fight back. CEELOS walked through Matthew Hallberg's prototype for Snap's AR specs: real cards on a real table, glasses recognize the card, and a 3D Pokémon with health bars and attacks appears on top of it. All 151 from the Scarlet & Violet set. The part he liked most — the physical object doesn't disappear, it becomes an interface.

[17:16] / [18:21] The Yu-Gi-Oh! generation clocks in. Baked said we're getting close to actually living the show; Lyss went further, wanting Blue-Eyes standing on the table and floating the idea that the same tech could resurrect Digimon. This is roughly where the room stopped evaluating a product and started remembering being ten.

[26:30] Meta's glasses, and the puck. ~100 grams on your face, 5K micro-OLED, battery and compute exiled to a separate puck in your pocket, ~$1,300 next spring. Val had actually tried AR glasses at a dinner that weekend — menus and Uno with your fingers — and reported the only real problem was her head being too big for them [29:06]. Baked's verdict on wearables generally: he owns a headset, has used it once, and would go blind in the sun before putting sunglasses on.

[36:33] / [48:33] Slick Ric's matrix take. His hot take: he'd only use them indoors, because the endgame is people walking down the street on 57 screens with zero situational awareness. He predicts clubs in twenty years where you hand your device over at the door so people relearn how to talk to each other.

[40:59] From chalkboard erasers to take-home iPads. Baked traced his own school years — chalkboards, then smartboards, then laptops, then his younger sister getting an iPad for senior year homework. CEELOS extended it: his eight-year-old at 28 might face a job listing that asks whether you know how to use virtual desktops. "Here's these goggles, put these on, get to work."

[44:27] Jed on what school and menus are actually for. Jed came up "triggered" by QR codes and made the case that the least important part of school is the work — it's the socializing, the structure, the problem solving. He also argued the QR menu solved a problem nobody had, and predicted the whole thing comes full circle: books, menus, IRL experiences make a strong comeback once people tire of the fake version. The one feature he'll grant it: when you 86 the crab cakes, you can pull them yourself [48:33].

[51:53] Lyss on the tableside tablet. She doesn't want to know what's trending, she wants the moment — and she's had it with servers clicking around on a handheld instead of listening. Her proposed rule: memorize the order, then punch it in. Jed added his own objection at [54:22]: the handheld gets presented to you while the server stands there watching you pick a tip percentage.

[56:21] Blue throws flowers, then gets practical. He praised the room's tone, then described using AI inside his three-restaurant group — not customer-facing, but as a teaching tool: managers build their weekly meetings from a template into slides with voiceover. It stripped the personal out and put the focus on the task. His caution echoed the host's: don't let it discredit what you're putting in.

[1:00:17] / [1:01:59] Muse on a keychain. CEELOS introduced Meta's Muse Charm — tap a fingerprint sensor and talk, no app, no typing, pitched as a personal agent rather than a chatbot. Dingus said he'd already downloaded it after stumbling into a Muse Space, fed it a context prompt from his other AIs, and it's now digging through his email asking whether that Facebook login was him. He'd still stop short of handing it an unlimited spend [1:06:27].

[1:14:22] Be nice to your agents. Val closed by relaying advice from the same dinner: at some point we all get called up and judged, so be nice to your AI. Baked immediately decided to ask ChatGPT for his report card. CEELOS suggested Val's would come back rated R.

Topic timeline

Notable quotes

• CEELOS [6:38]: "AI is moving from ask me a question to let me help you do something."
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  0:38
• Slick Ric [10:55]: "We gotta make sure we use AI, but don't totally rely on it... because this is fact that stuff comes, they can take it away from you."
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  0:38
• Baked [17:16]: "We're getting closer to being able to actually live the show, which is kind of cool."
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  0:38
• Jed [49:03]: "Eventually like IRL experiences and all these things like books and menus are all gonna make a strong comeback."
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  0:38
• Lyss [51:53]: "I want to look into my server's eyes, like I want to have that connection."
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  0:38
• ValerieKates [1:14:22]: "At some point, we're all going to be called up and judged. So be nice to your AI agents."
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  0:38

Who said what

• CEELOS (@CEELOSFIGG) — host; ran the three news stories (AR Pokémon, Meta glasses, Muse Charm) and kept steering back to the generational question: what's normal for kids who never touched a chalkboard.
• Baked (@Bakedmetax) — co-host, dialing in from the route then from home Wi-Fi; the room's TCG and gaming reference point, and its reluctant spokesman for "I will not wear things on my face."
• ValerieKates (@valeriekates_) — co-host; the only person who'd actually tried the AR glasses recently, and the source of the closing "be nice to your AI" advice.
• Slick Ric (@richj530) — supplied both the real-world AI sighting (cashierless merch kiosk) and the counterweight: awareness, street sense, and a future where clubs confiscate your device at the door.
• Lyss (@Lysss302) — opened with the Lyss-not-Liz naming bit, brought the Yu-Gi-Oh!/Digimon enthusiasm, and made the strongest case for human hospitality over tableside screens.
• Jed (@jed_131) — restaurant owner; anti-QR-menu, pro-server, pro-socialization, and the source of the Uncle Mac maxim: don't fix things that don't need fixing.
• Blue (@Ur_Boy_BLU) — operates three restaurants; agreed full service is eroding post-COVID, and described using AI to standardize internal manager meetings. Advice to his kids about the restaurant business: don't.
• Dingus (@DingusUSA) — the room's early Muse adopter and the most bullish voice on out-of-the-box agentic AI; plugged his own Space on fiber networks in India.
• Pharaoh (@spade_pirates) — One Piece collector; flagged Meta's glasses letting you carry an AI character around with you in the real world.
• DARKM N (@Bryan36krun) — took a lap for connectivity, then connected AR back to Skylanders-style physical figures reading into digital worlds.
• Woof (@WoofArmyXX) — checked in between the gym and a night turn, and shared the Romanian bodybuilder whose prosthetic cover matches his other leg.
• Burningbush (@BurningBush_eth) ^* — dropped in to listen rather than host for once, with a note on how much easier it is to update a paper menu than call someone about a website.

Worth a full listen

• [44:27]–[55:24] — The QR-menu detour becomes the best stretch of the Space: two working restaurant operators, a customer with strong feelings about eye contact, and a surprisingly precise argument about where technology strips out the thing you were paying for. The tipping-screen section lands especially well.
• [36:33]–[43:58] — Slick Ric's "57 screens" warning running straight into Baked's chalkboard-to-iPad timeline and CEELOS imagining his son's future job interview. The summary flattens how naturally the room walked from a $1,300 gadget to what childhood looks like in fifteen years.
• [1:00:17]–[1:10:23] — The Muse segment, where Dingus's hands-on report meets CEELOS's slow realization that the AI he talks to every day is quietly learning how he thinks. Ends on Skynet-in-China and "worry about what's in your control."

* some voices are identified from context; those names are marked as likely.