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Robot Foundation Models Are Not What I Was Expecting (I’m 5 Years Too Early)
When Physical Intelligence announced the π0 foundation model, I thought a ChatGPT moment in robotics was near. Here was a model that could control different kinds of robots to perform a variety of dexterous tasks. It could fold clothes, make coffee, assemble cardboard boxes, and more. I thought we’d get another post like swyx’s signaling robotics as an emerging capability of the […]
AI at the Table
I sit at a really weird saddle point currently. Professionally, I’m obliged to engage with generative AI technologies. I’m an AI technologist. I’ve been doing this for nearly twenty years at this point, and over ten past the doctorate. I can’t just ignore a new technology because I personally find it ethically dubious. Conversely, I’m […]
Planning-First AI Methodology: The Foundation of Successful AI Collaboration
Why starting with understanding, not code, is the key to unlocking AI’s full potential in software development Picture this: You’re 7 hours into your work day, you’re on your third cup of coffee, and the AI just generated 200 lines of code that compile perfectly… and do absolutely nothing you wanted. Sound familiar? If you’ve […]
So Long, “beforeEach”? New Testing Pattern in JavaScript
Tests in TypeScript or JavaScript often run setup code inside hooks like “beforeEach”: Developers must take care to get the setup correct, especially in large or nested test suites. Many scopes (“describe”, “beforeEach”, “it”) read and mutate the test fixtures. The setup must reset the fixtures before each test. Test authors must be careful to […]
The AI Coding Revolution: Why Your Development Team Needs to Invest Now or Risk Being Left Behind
A developer’s perspective on mastering AI coding tools for competitive advantage The software development landscape has undergone more transformation in the past year than in the previous decade combined. As AI coding tools evolve from novelty to necessity, development teams face a critical decision: invest heavily in learning these tools now, or watch competitors pull […]
From PDF Chaos to AI-Powered Organization: An Engineer’s Journey into Document Processing
How I built an intelligent document processing system using OCR (Optical Character Recognition), local LLMs, and Python – leveraging my code generation AI experience The Problem: Drowning in a Digital Morass Like many people, I had accumulated a large collection of PDF documents over the years – medical records, invoices, receipts, tax documents, insurance papers. […]
Crispus Attucks Grad Named 2025 SEP Foundation Maker Scholar
The SEP Foundation Maker Scholarship selects IU Indianapolis-bound computer science student as the 2025 recipient Westfield, Indiana – The SEP Foundation is excited to announce the 2025 recipient of the SEP Foundation Maker Scholarship: Mutombo M., a recent graduate of Crispus Attucks High School. Mutombo will begin his freshman year this fall at IU Indianapolis, […]
Generality in Generative AI is an Illusion
Large language models are often described as general-purpose problem solvers. That’s fair; given a prompt, they can write SQL queries, summarize academic papers, troubleshoot YAML files, produce a mediocre chili recipe, and draft HR emails, all in the same breath. That breadth of capability is a big driver of the current enthusiasm. Here’s the thing […]
Celebrating Our 2025 SEP Interns
This summer, SEP welcomed another incredible group of interns who jumped into real-world projects, asked great questions, and left their mark on our teams. From software engineering to AI-focused problem solving, each intern brought curiosity, fresh perspective, and a genuine excitement for learning. We asked a few of them to share what surprised them about […]
Learning AI Optimization w/ Factorio 2: Modelling
What is this project? If you have not yet read the introduction, you can find it here. The abridged version is is: My goal is to create a system for determining the “best” possible Factorio factories based on footprint and cost to build. Modelling? So, one of the key things for making a maze solver, […]
SEP Strengthens Leadership Team with Key Promotions to Drive Future Growth
Westfield, IN, 06/30/2025 – SEP, a leader in software product development, announces key promotions as part of its long-term leadership strategy. As a 100% employee-owned company, SEP prioritizes succession planning and empowering leaders to ensure sustained success and alignment with its core values. Chris Atkinson, has been promoted to Chief Delivery Officer. With nearly 30 years […]
Learning AI Optimization w/ Factorio 1/x
Who am I? My name is Keith Hanson, I graduated from Rose-Hulman with a degree in Software Engineering in 2021. In my time since graduation I worked extensively with infrastructure as code and on backend systems. Notably what you won’t find in my project background is anything to do with AI. I took 1 course […]
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