On Our "Virtual Route 99" (Special Edition): On Our World

 

Our team presents a perspective from the Holy Father (which we have featured) on AI along with insights from the Elders as we also note the following courtesy Goldman Sachs:  The key insights today: If history is a guide, fears of mass unemployment resulting from AI are likely overblown, according to Goldman Sachs Chairman and CEO David Solomon. Goldman Sachs Research raised its S&P 500 forecast for year-end 2026 to 8000 on stronger profit growth. The key number for AI agents: 120 quadrillion. Quoted: Internet stocks have lagged. Are they due for a rebound? Complexity can result in the best opportunities for private equity deals, says James Brocklebank, co-chair of Advent. Briefings Brainteaser: How are US households investing in equities? Want to sign up and stay connected? Click here. CEO David Solomon: How AI Will Impact US Jobs David Solomon Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs If history is a guide, fears of mass unemployment resulting from artificial intelligence (AI) are likely overblown, Goldman Sachs Chairman and CEO David Solomon writes in a New York Times opinion article. The impact of AI is already being felt in our daily lives and in the labor market, and Goldman Sachs Research estimates that AI could automate 25% of current work hours over the next ten years. This will disrupt some existing jobs, with white-collar roles most exposed to automation. That said, AI is also likely to create new jobs, both in sectors involved in building and maintaining the physical infrastructure for AI and in areas where productivity increases driven by the technology are freeing up companies to deploy more workers in less routine roles. Crucially, history shows that the US economy can adapt and thrive when faced with disruption. From the Industrial Revolution to the internet age, new technologies have driven prosperity, dynamism, and entrepreneurship. There’s no clear reason to think that AI will be any different, Solomon writes. Read the full article in the New York Times to find out the three reasons why David Solomon expects the US economy to remain resilient and dynamic. The S&P 500 Is Forecast to Climb Higher The US stock market's 2026 rally has been driven entirely by rising corporate profits rather than increasing equity valuations—and Goldman Sachs Research expects that trend to continue. The S&P 500 is forecast to rise to 8000 by the end of this year, up from an earlier projection of 7600, according to Ben Snider, chief US equity strategist in Goldman Sachs Research. The rally would mark a 6% gain from current levels (as of May 26). The higher forecast is driven by upgraded earnings estimates; the team projects S&P 500 earnings per share (EPS) of $340 in 2026, a 24% increase from the prior year, and $385 in 2027, representing 13% growth. Spending on AI infrastructure is the single biggest driver. The largest tech firms are projected to spend $754 billion on capital investment this year (an 83% jump from 2025) and $905 billion in 2027. The companies that benefit from AI infrastructure investment are expected to account for roughly half of S&P 500 EPS growth this year. Read the full article, or find out more on how hedge funds are trading semiconductor stocks. The Key Number: 120,000,000,000,000,000 By 2030, AI agents are expected to become so popular with consumers and businesses that their processing activity will be 24 times higher, according to Goldman Sachs Research. This translates into 120 quadrillion “tokens”—units of text processed by large language models—consumed per month. It’s a big number, and a key metric for getting a handle on the growth rate of AI, says Jim Schneider, the senior equity analyst covering US semiconductor and IT services at Goldman Sachs Research. “I don’t know what’s beyond quadrillion, but it’s a lot,” he says. This level of demand is expected to unfold at the same time the unit costs of AI are falling. As a result, the industry should record a “gross margin inflection," Schneider says. “The concern in the general investor community is the sustainability of capex because the free cash flows of hyperscalers have gotten compressed,” Schneider says. “What fixes that? If you raise gross margins, you raise operating cash flow, and that gives you more headroom to spend.” In case you missed it: Read our article on the corporate investment in AI. Quoted: A Strengthening Case for US Internet Stocks Peter Callahan on The Markets “You're starting to see a little bit more innovation from the product side on US internet companies tied to AI, and the temperature on the consumer seems to be coming down as oil prices have reset off the highs. And so given that backdrop and cleaner positioning, I'll be watching the US internet sector from here.” —Peter Callahan, US technology, media, and telecommunications sector specialist in Global Banking & Markets. Watch the full episode of The Markets podcast for more on the outlook for tech stocks. Complex Markets Are Creating Opportunities in Private Equity James Brocklebank (L) with host Alison Mass on Goldman Sachs Exchanges: Great Investors The best private equity deals can originate in volatile and complex markets, says James Brocklebank, co-chair of private equity firm Advent, where he also co-heads the European business. “Non-benign conditions”—including geopolitical risks, energy shocks, and higher interest rates—often prompt companies to reassess their portfolios, which in turn spur carve-out deals, when a parent company sells or separates a smaller business, Brocklebank says on the latest episode of Goldman Sachs Exchanges: Great Investors. “Complexity is our friend, and we tend to lean in at times like this,” he adds. Another example of intricacy creating opportunities for investors is the fragmentation and complexity of European markets. In Europe, “each country has different political and regulatory setups, you've got all the different languages,” Brocklebank says. “We love that complexity.” Brocklebank points out that Europe is an especially rich source of transformational buyouts—complex carve-outs in which large multinationals shed non-core divisions that require operational separation. The US market, by contrast, skews toward growth and acceleration buyouts, underpinned by the world's deepest capital markets in which virtually any deal can be financed. "In Europe, the market is more relationship-driven," Brocklebank says. This means that some potential transactions won’t get done, but it can also make deals cheaper, he adds. In this market, a deep local presence creates an information advantage that remote investors struggle to replicate, Brocklebank says.   Suddenly, a streak of light slices through the darkness. It burns with savage intensity, leaving a blazing scar across the night sky that sheds sparks of molten rain. Startled onlookers point upward and cry out, “Look at that! It’s a meteor!” But this wasn’t a meteor. It was satellite debris: a wreckage of metal that once orbited hundreds of miles above our heads. Believe it or not, hundreds of tons of space debris, also referred to as “space junk,” plunge into Earth’s atmosphere annually. There are 15,623 active satellites orbiting Earth as of May 12th, 2026. Of those, 10,358 belong to SpaceX’s “Starlink,” which provides fast, affordable internet to over 150 countries. Alongside these active satellites are space debris moving at staggering speeds of roughly 17,500 mph. That’s ten times faster than a bullet. The sheer scale of orbital traffic demands constant vigilance. As a result, the astronautics industry has adopted autonomous avoidance maneuver protocols that enable active satellites to avoid space collisions in real time. So, how does AI make split-second course corrections to prevent chaos in Earth’s orbit?          LIFE IN LOW ORBIT         ⦿  Where Do Satellites Live? The Earth’s atmosphere enables life to exist. It’s essentially an invisible security blanket that protects us from space debris while regulating the planet’s temperature. But this invisible security blanket isn’t one uniform layer. Instead, it’s divided into five distinct layers:  Troposphere: 0 to 12 km high, it’s where the air we breathe lives.  Stratosphere: 12 to 50 km high, it’s where the Ozone absorbs most of the Sun’s harmful ultraviolet radiation.  Mesosphere: 50 to 80 km high, it’s where meteors burn up due to compressional heating as they collide with atmospheric gases at speeds of up to 72 km/s.  Thermosphere: 80 to 700 km high, it’s where charged particles from the Sun’s solar wind collide with atmospheric atoms to create the Northern Lights.  Exosphere: 700 to 10,000 km high, it’s where the Earth’s atmosphere gradually fades into the vacuum of interplanetary space.   *1 km is equivalent to the length of 3 Eiffel Towers and 10 Statues of Liberty! Almost all satellites orbit within the “LEO Zone,” which ranges from roughly 160 km to 2,000 km above the Earth’s surface. In order to remain within this orbital zone, a satellite is launched sideways at a lateral velocity of 7.8 km/s, balancing Earth’s gravity with the satellite’s forward inertia. This balancing act creates a constant free fall around the Earth’s curve. Satellites move incredibly fast, completing one full orbit around Earth every 90 to 120 minutes. ⦿  The More Collisions, The More Debris? Earth’s orbital highway is becoming increasingly congested. Since the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1 on Oct. 4th, 1957, more than 25,000 satellites have been sent to space. Of those, approximately 10,000 are defunct, with about 2,400 crowding the “LEO Zone.” Over time, the collisions and explosions caused by discarded rocket stages have generated millions of pieces of space debris. The space agencies estimate over 140 million pieces of space debris between 1 mm and 1 cm are currently orbiting Earth at speeds of up to 28,000 km/h. At those speeds, even a microscopic fleck of paint carries the kinetic energy of a hand grenade. On Feb. 10th, 2009, the inactive Russian satellite Kosmos 2251 collided with the active Russian satellite Iridium 33, marking the first major accidental satellite collision in human history. This crash generated 1,900 trackable pieces of space debris. ⦿  Will Cleanup Save Us? To remove space junk, the space agencies collectively engineered the “ADR Spacecraft,” equipped with robotic arms, deployable nets, and magnetic harpoons to deorbit hazardous man-made fragments. It achieves this by safely towing the hazardous man-made fragments into Earth’s atmosphere to burn up upon reentry. An experimental method also involves leveraging laser brooms: ground-based laser beams that briefly heat the surface of space debris, generating a plasma plume that steers it away from active satellites.          AI PREDICTS ORBITAL PATHS?         ⦿  Fighting Space Debris With AI? Neuraspace, a space traffic management company, recently engineered an AI/ML solution that autonomously generates orbital collision risk assessments, drastically reducing the time satellite operators spend evaluating space debris.  Orbital Tracking: What’s Moving? Nearly all spacecraft follow relatively predictable orbital paths, but solar radiation, atmospheric expansion, and gravitational irregularities can gradually shift their expected trajectory. To map these expected trajectories, Neuraspace relies on a multimodal space surveillance sensor suite that includes:  Radio Signals: The altitude, velocity, and orientation transmitted by an active satellite’s emitted radio signals.  Radar Tracking: The speed, position, and direction measured by bouncing radio waves off an active satellite’s surface.  Optical Observations: The position and movement determined by capturing the sunlight reflected off an active satellite’s frame.  Orbital Threats: What’s Dangerous? On average, space traffic controllers issue 1,000 official orbital collision warnings to satellite operators every single day, most of which turn out to be harmless. Unfortunately, executing a split-second course correction shortens an active satellite’s life span by draining finite fuel. Neuraspace leverages the multimodal space surveillance sensor suite to continuously run “CARA Calculations”: whether two orbital paths may converge closely enough to create a catastrophic collision. ML Models are trained to reduce false positives by analyzing previously recorded “unique conjunction events”: close orbital encounters between active satellites and space junk. The ML Models learn which combinations of vector velocity, deviation distance, and propagated probability historically led to catastrophic collisions.  Orbital Recommendations: What’s the Move? Once a possible catastrophic collision is identified, satellite operators choose a suggested collision avoidance maneuver, employing precise propulsion burns to slightly raise, lower, or shift orbital timing to ensure active satellites maintain safe separation from space junk. For astronaut-occupied spacecraft like NASA’s ISS, which has spent over 25 years in Earth’s lower orbit and housed more than 280 astronauts, NASA may act if the predicted probability of a catastrophic collision exceeds 1 in 10,000, meaning the risk rises just above 0.01%. For reference, ISS has only executed 40 collision avoidance maneuvers since its launch on Nov. 20th, 1998.          THE REAL-WORLD IMPACT?         ⦿  A Traffic Jam in Space? The “LEO Zone” has become dangerously congested. For context, active satellites pass within 1 km of each other every 22 seconds. As of May 5th, 2026, SpaceX operates exactly 10,358 active satellites, accounting for approximately 67% of all active satellites within Earth’s lower orbit. As a result, SpaceX must perform up to 300,000 collision avoidance maneuvers annually to mitigate the growing threat posed by space junk. A single space collision within Earth’s lower orbit can generate thousands of high-velocity orbital fragments, each capable of destroying active satellites. This could ultimately create a cascading effect known as the Kessler Syndrome: the theoretical tipping point at which space junk reaches critical mass, triggering a self-sustaining cycle of constant space collisions that render future space exploration impossible.          KEY TAKEAWAY         For decades, Earth’s lower orbit was treated as an endless expanse of uncharted space. Today, it’s a heavily congested cosmic highway littered with space junk traveling 11x faster than an AK-47’s bullets. AI’s ability to predict destructive orbital collisions could safeguard future space exploration.