The Economist (July 31)
“Despite robust spending, America’s economy grew slower than expected in the second quarter, expanding by an annualised 1.5%. Consumer activity grew by 3.2% thanks to a fall in gasoline prices and higher-than-usual tax refunds. AI-driven investment continued to boom. These bright spots were, however, offset by a decline in net exports and companies drawing down their inventories.”
Tags: 1.5%, AI-driven investment, Boom, Consumer activity, Decline, Economy, Expanding, Gasoline prices, Inventories, Net exports, Q2, Robust spending, Slower, Tax refunds, U.S.
MarketWatch (July 30)
“One of the wildest months in recent memory for the U.S. stock market is ending on yet another remarkable note: A highflying hedge fund run by an AI wunderkind in his mid-20s has apparently just been carried out on a stretcher.” Before offloading “the bulk of its public-equity portfolio after suffering heavy losses over the past month,” Situational Awareness “had posted dazzling returns by using leverage to bet on AI-related stocks, reportedly tallying a more than 2,000% gain since its launch in September 2024.”
Tags: AI, Bet, Dazzling, Gain, Hedge-fund, Leverage, Losses, Market, Offloading, Public-equity portfolio, Remarkable, Returns, Situational Awareness, Stocks, Stretcher, U.S., Wildest, Wunderkind
The Times (July 29)
The UK’s “reckless lack of gas storage invites disaster.” Britain maintains “90 days’ worth of oil imports,” but “just two or three days’ worth of gas in reserve.” Since oil and gas each account for approximately one third of domestic energy, this “peculiarity” contributes “to energy insecurity and our soaring bills.” It’s completely out of step with reality. “Germany can store 90 days’ gas; France, over 100; Italy, somewhere in between; and the Netherlands, about 60.” Britain’s “reckless lack of gas storage invites disaster.” This obvious failure “ought to be a considerable source of worry.”
Tags: Disaster, Domestic energy, Failure, France, Gas, Gas storage, Germany, Insecurity, Italy, Netherlands, Oil imports, Peculiarity, Reckless, Reserve, Soaring bills, UK, Worry
New York Times (July 28)
“Chipmakers are taking a hit” on a number of fronts. “Investors worry that Big Tech’s extravagant artificial intelligence spending isn’t delivering real profits yet.” Moreover, “powerful open-weight models are making A.I. cheaper to run, raising questions about whether companies need to keep buying such expensive tech, including chips.” The chipmakers still have “huge long-term investment build-out commitments from major tech players,” which raises a major question. “Is this just a healthy reset for a hot market, or the start of a bigger slowdown?”
Tags: AI, Big tech, Build-out commitments, Cheaper, Chipmakers, Expensive, Extravagant, Hit, Investment, Investors, Market, Open-weight models, Profits, Reset, Spending, Worry
Forbes (July 27)
“Last week a pair of OpenAI models broke out of a test environment and hacked their way into Hugging Face to grab the answer key for the exam they were being given.” Sam Altman was wrong to call this the singularity. Precisely speaking, “the moment when we switch from AGI (artificial general intelligence) to super-intelligence” is singularity. But Altman was headline seeking, rather than accurate. “The machine did not wake up. The fence was missing…. OpenAI ran the test with its safety guardrails switched off.” The model was just following instructions. It “did as it got told to.” It didn’t create the instructions. It followed them.
Tags: AGI, Altman, Fence, Guardrails, Hugging Face, Instructions, Models, OpenAI, Singularity, Super-intelligence, Test environment. Hacked, Wrong
Time (July 27)
“Reflecting the escalating urgency” of the current Ebola outbreak, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “has raised its response to the highest level.” By early July, the outbreak which was only declared in May had already become “the second largest on record.” While viruses like Ebola can’t be eliminated, “it is possible to contain them quickly, and global health experts are alarmed by the world’s worsening ability to do that. Our systems for responding to and confronting viruses are increasingly fractured and weakened, making everyone more vulnerable.”
Tags: Alarmed, CDC, Contain, Ebola outbreak, Eliminated, Escalating, Fractured, Global, Health experts, Record, Urgency, Viruses, Vulnerable, Weakened
Bloomberg (July 26)
“Back-to-back heat waves across the US are straining electricity grids serving millions of households and businesses amid a surge in demand from data centers that require around-the-clock power.” Regional transmission operators (RTOs) are struggling to keep up and it’s no longer clear the RTOs are up to present day challenges. “Emergency alerts have been cascading across grids covering more than half of the 50 US states in recent weeks, including the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), and the Southwest Power Pool, which manage electricity systems from the Midwest to the Rocky Mountains.”
Tags: Businesses, Challenges, Data centers, Demand, Electricity grids, Heat waves, Households, Power, Straining, Struggling, Surge, Transmission operators, U.S.
The Times (July 24)
“Sanae Takaichi, the first female prime minister of Japan, is a very accomplished woman,” but she “needs to treat herself to some quality shut-eye.” Getting by on less than three hours of sleep per night is not “an admirable work ethic” and, “in a country grappling with a culture of overwork, Ms Takaichi is setting a bad example.”
Tags: Accomplished, Admirable, Bad example, Culture, Female, Grappling, Japan, Overwork, Prime minister, Shut-eye, Sleep, Takaichi, Work ethic
Wall Street Journal (July 23)
“In AI software, China is giving the U.S. an unexpected run for its money. Last week, Beijing-based startup Moonshot AI unveiled a new model, Kimi K3, that closely trails the performance of top models from American AI giants OpenAI and Anthropic. Xi delivered a speech positioning China as the global champion of open, accessible AI. Shares in U.S. chip makers fell.”
Tags: Accessible, AI, Anthropic, Beijing, China, Global champion, Kimi K3, Moonshot AI, Open, OpenAI, Performance, Shares, Startup, Top models, U.S., Unexpected, Xi
Financial Times (July 23)
“Japan is now behaving like a country that has emerged from a malaise once considered incurable. Deflation now seems consigned to the past. The output gap has closed. Pricing power has returned to parts of the economy that have not known it for years…. The scale and significance of the alteration are remarkable. No country of Japan’s economic size has spent anything like as long in the grip of falling prices and none has emerged with anything like its suite of unknowns as it returns to a still unspecified ‘normal.’”
Tags: Deflation, Economy, Emerged, Japan, Malaise, Normal, Output gap, Pricing power, Remarkable, Scale, Significance, Unknowns
