title: Weekly Dose of Optimism #183
author: Packy McCormick
content_type: article
publication: Not Boring by Packy McCormick
published: 2026-03-06T14:02:45+00:00
source_url: https://www.notboring.co/p/weekly-dose-of-optimism-183
word_count: 1643
Weekly Dose of Optimism #183
Brief
Packy McCormick’s Weekly Dose of Optimism #183 highlights three advances: Pi’s robot models gained a memory system (short-term visual + long-term semantic up to ≈15 minutes) enabling multi‑step tasks; Arc Institute’s Evo 2 (StripedHyena 2) trained on 9.3 trillion nucleotides generalizes across life, scored >90% on BRCA1, and produced validated bacteriophages; and Sangeeta Bhatia’s injectable ‘satellite livers’ remained functional for ≥8 weeks in mice.
Why it matters
Physical Intelligence (Pi) added a memory system with short-term visual memory and long-term semantic memory lasting up to ~15 minutes, enabling robots to perform long multi-step tasks (e.g., clean a kitchen, set up ingredients, grill a sandwich) and learn from past mistakes.
Key details
- Arc Institute’s Evo 2 (StripedHyena 2) trained on 9.3 trillion nucleotides from >128,000 whole genomes can reason over 8× more nucleotides than Evo 1, achieved >90% accuracy on BRCA1 pathogenicity, produced AI‑designed bacteriophages (16 of 285 designs propagated and inhibited target bacteria), and released model weights, code, and the OpenGenome2 dataset.
- MIT’s Sangeeta Bhatia lab developed injectable ‘satellite livers’—hepatocytes plus hydrogel microspheres and fibroblasts delivered by syringe—that integrated with host vasculature and remained viable for at least eight weeks in mice, offering a potential bridge to transplant or repeated minimally invasive therapy.