In this edition of the Superintelligent podcast, Superintelligent hosts Mike Elgan and Emily Forlini talk about Brilliant Labs’ new Halo smart glasses, which cost $299, weigh just 40 grams, promise 14 hours of battery life, remember everything you hear and see. The product stands out because it has a heads-up display and lean retro graphics at a price identical to Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses. Unlike its competition, the Halo relies on an open source agent called NOA and packs in voice-activated “vibe coding.”

Both hosts raise privacy as a key risk with smart glasses, especially as recording devices with always-on cameras move into everyday life. They talk about how Ray-Ban Meta glasses indicate recording with a visible light but that most people ignore it. Emily brings up that women and anyone concerned with style may find glasses a hard sell, with Mike mentioning Ray-Ban’s advantage in making technology look familiar.

Mike and Emily then shift to the growing impact of AI data centers in rural America. Emily uses firsthand reporting from Pennsylvania, where new data centers need massive power lines, and the resulting fights with local landowners. She describes one case where a family receives eminent domain papers to make way for a power line up to 240 feet tall. These lines connect nuclear power plants to data centers that can draw energy equivalent to 500,000 homes each.

The show brings up Wyoming as a place where soon more electricity could go to AI than for people, and highlights booming electricity demand for server farms serving Meta, Amazon, and others. Mike notes Elon Musk once warned about running out of power for AI two years after his prediction, but the U.S. has since ramped up solar power production.

The episode wraps with the pair discussing monoculture farming, job loss due to data centers and AI, and the toll on local communities when a few companies push rapid, sometimes hidden, expansion.

Emily offers contact info for the group “Alliance to Stop the Line,” showing that the impact of these infrastructure projects is not just an abstract tech problem, but a personal one for many people in towns across the U.S.

Links:Halo — https://brilliant.xyz/products/halo Mike Elgan — https://elgan.com/about Emily Forlini — https://emilyforlini.com

Email comments to: [email protected]

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.superintelligentpodcast.com