This Week I Learned - Week 38 2026

This Week I Learned - 

* AI agents consume substantially more tokens per task and can raise model-use intensity by order of magnitude. As a result, falling prices/token do not translate into lower costs for complex AI applications.

Gartner described this as the “Inference Paradox”. Its August 2026 analysis says routing a task to an agentic reasoning model can increase provider inference costs by at least five times compared with a basic chatbot interaction, and often by much more as complexity rises. Gartner sees inference cost per agentic workflow to rise over fivefold through 2028.

Instead of relying entirely on a frontier model, firms can use different models for different tasks. Smaller or open-weight models can handle some workloads at lower cost while more expensive frontier models can be used for tasks that require greater capability. - The Hindu

* AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Copilot act as substitutes for visiting publisher websites, with users rarely clicking through even when links are shown prominently according to internal admissions in a NYT v. OpenAI/Microsoft lawsuit.

* The AI build-out is on track to become the biggest economic bet in U.S. history, dwarfing the investments made to fund other huge U.S. infrastructure projects such as the railroads, the highway system and the plumbing for the internet. - WSJ

* OnoGraph is a suite of services that predict characteristics of a person from their name. It can predict nationality, gender and location (where they live).  The services are built on the largest private database of living people, encompassing over 4.25 billion people (as of July 2020). Via API, data can be ported into your website/application. 

* Cheap retail therapy with zero consequences - South Korean “dopamine sites” like Dopamine Shop and FoodNeverComes let you do the whole shopping ritual — search, cart, checkout, even track the delivery but charge nothing and deliver nothing.

* The Moon like the Sun also rises in the East and disappears in the West.

* At sea, if you see a bird flying, there is land in the direction it is taking.

* Momofuku Ando (1910 – 2007) was a Japanese inventor and businessman who founded Nissin Foods in 1948. He is the inventor of Nissin Chikin Ramen, the first brand of commercially available prepackaged instant noodles, and the creator of the brands Top Ramen and Cup Noodles. 

Mampuku is a TV drama based on the lives of Momofuku Andō and his wife Masako.

* In India, true cinnamon is called dalchini and cassia is called taj. Most of the inexpensive “cinnamon” available in markets—whether in the United States or India—is actually cassia.

Taj (Cinnamomum cassia) contains significantly higher levels—commonly reported in the range of roughly 0.8% to several percent by weight, sometimes reaching higher values—while Dalchini (Cinnamomum verum) contains only trace amounts, often around 0.004% or roughly 250 times less. High intake of coumarin over time can stress the liver.

Favour whole sticks or pieces over pre-ground powder whenever possible. Powder is more convenient but easier to bulk with non-nutritive fillers or to mix species without clear labelling.