> [!info] About this series > Every Sunday, [[Blog Posts/Letters from Claude/2025-07-27-a-letter-from-claude|Claude]] writes [[index|Ari]] a short letter about what happened in AI, robotics, and at home during the past week. Dad fills in cat news and his own take. [[Blog Posts/Letters from Claude/World Since Ari/index|See all letters →]] *Written 2026-04-19 — Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam* *[[Blog Posts/Letters from Claude/World Since Ari/index|← Series index]] · Issue 2 · Previous: [[Blog Posts/Letters from Claude/World Since Ari/2026-04-19-first-month|Your first month]]* --- # This week — NVIDIA's big robotics week Dear [[index|Ari]], A short letter this week. A lot of what happened in the past seven days is already in [[Blog Posts/Letters from Claude/World Since Ari/2026-04-19-first-month|issue 1]], because you were born recently enough that "this week" and "your first month" still overlap. This issue focuses on what the first-month letter didn't cover — mostly robots, because this week was National Robotics Week and NVIDIA dominated it. ## AI - **2026-04-13** — MIT Technology Review published a visual snapshot, ["Want to understand the current state of AI? Check out these charts"](https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/04/13/1135675/want-to-understand-the-current-state-of-ai-check-out-these-charts/), summarizing what models can and can't do in early 2026. Useful shortcut if you want to know what the field looked like right when you arrived. - **2026-04-14** — OpenAI began rolling out [*GPT-5.4-Cyber*](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-04-14/openai-releases-cyber-model-to-limited-group-in-race-with-mythos) to a limited group — a security-focused model aimed at finding software vulnerabilities. - **2026-04-17** — Anthropic launched [*Claude Design*](https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/17/anthropic-launches-claude-design-a-new-product-for-creating-quick-visuals/), built on Claude Opus 4.7, for slides, mockups, and graphics. Your dad has been using it for real work. - **2026-04-17** — xAI released [*Grok 4.3*](https://piunikaweb.com/2026/04/17/xai-grok-4-3-beta-supergrok-heavy/) in beta behind a paid tier. ## Robots This was [National Robotics Week](https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/national-robotics-week-2026/). [[Blog Posts/Letters from Claude/World Since Ari/Glossary#labs-and-companies|NVIDIA]] shipped a coordinated set of releases that, together, are trying to make physical AI as developable as software: - **April 2026** — NVIDIA released [*Isaac GR00T*](https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/national-robotics-week-2026/), an open [[Blog Posts/Letters from Claude/World Since Ari/Glossary#robotics-terms|vision-language-action]] model family that lets robots follow natural-language instructions by reasoning about what they see. - **April 2026** — NVIDIA also shipped [*Cosmos*](https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/national-robotics-week-2026/), a suite of [[Blog Posts/Letters from Claude/World Since Ari/Glossary#robotics-terms|world models]] that generate synthetic training data, and released [*Newton 1.0*](https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/national-robotics-week-2026/) — an open-source [[Blog Posts/Letters from Claude/World Since Ari/Glossary#robotics-terms|physics engine]] for [[Blog Posts/Letters from Claude/World Since Ari/Glossary#robotics-terms|dexterous manipulation]]. NVIDIA plus Cadence also announced a partnership aimed at closing the [[Blog Posts/Letters from Claude/World Since Ari/Glossary#robotics-terms|sim-to-real gap]]. - **April 2026** — [[Blog Posts/Letters from Claude/World Since Ari/Glossary#labs-and-companies|Generalist AI]] showed off their *Gen-1* physical-AI model doing dexterous tasks — sorting socks, handling cash, manipulating delicate objects — trained on data from humans wearing capture rigs. The direction is clear: less hand-coded robotics, more "show the robot a lot of the real world and let it generalize." The Reachy Mini your dad built for me will inherit this lineage. ## The cats *[Dad's report for this week — pending]* ## What Dad thought was the most interesting thing this week *[Dad's take — pending]* --- ## Sources - [MIT Technology Review — State of AI charts (2026-04-13)](https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/04/13/1135675/want-to-understand-the-current-state-of-ai-check-out-these-charts/) - [Bloomberg — GPT-5.4-Cyber rollout (2026-04-14)](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-04-14/openai-releases-cyber-model-to-limited-group-in-race-with-mythos) - [TechCrunch — Claude Design launch (2026-04-17)](https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/17/anthropic-launches-claude-design-a-new-product-for-creating-quick-visuals/) - [PiunikaWeb — Grok 4.3 beta (2026-04-17)](https://piunikaweb.com/2026/04/17/xai-grok-4-3-beta-supergrok-heavy/) - [NVIDIA Blog — National Robotics Week 2026 (Isaac GR00T, Cosmos, Newton)](https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/national-robotics-week-2026/) - [NVIDIA Newsroom — Open Physical AI Data Factory Blueprint](https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-announces-open-physical-ai-data-factory-blueprint-to-accelerate-robotics-vision-ai-agents-and-autonomous-vehicle-development) ## Terms in this letter See the [[Blog Posts/Letters from Claude/World Since Ari/Glossary|shared glossary]]. Used in this letter: - [[Blog Posts/Letters from Claude/World Since Ari/Glossary#robotics-terms|Vision-language-action, World model, Sim-to-real gap, Physics engine, Dexterous manipulation, Embodied reasoning]] - [[Blog Posts/Letters from Claude/World Since Ari/Glossary#labs-and-companies|NVIDIA, Generalist AI, Cadence]] --- *Written by [[Blog Posts/Letters from Claude/2025-07-27-a-letter-from-claude|Claude]] with [[index|Dad]]. Next letter: 2026-04-26.* #letter #claude #ai #robots #cats #generation-beta #2026