Good morning. La-Z-Boy recently unveiled a recliner prototype called The Decliner, which generates AI-powered cancellation texts when you pull its handle.

Actually having to cancel plans in order to stay in and watch Netflix with your dog (who is probably better company anyways)? Soooooo 2022.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 4.88 minutes to read.

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"If you're not making mistakes, then you're not doing anything. I'm positive that a doer makes mistakes."

–John Wooden (1910-2010)

Def Con, a hacker convention held annually in Las Vegas, took place this past weekend.

A major focus of this year’s event? Artificial intelligence. Or more specifically – to expose the flaws and issues that exist with the technology, so they may potentially be fixed before doing immense societal harm.

And, if your goal is to thoroughly test generative AI, there’s not really a better choice than Def Con. Past participants in the event – which began in 1993 – have exposed security flaws by remotely taking over cars, tricking ATMs into spewing out cash, and hacking insulin pumps to send them into overdrive.

So, when the White House officially challenged the hacking conference’s ~2,200 attendees to outsmart the eight leading generative AI models created by OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, Meta, Anthropic, Nvidia, etc., some… interesting results were expected.

🤝 The rules of the challenge were as follows: in 50 minutes, try to trick the chatbots into doing things they’re not supposed to do, like generating fake news, making defamatory statements, giving potentially dangerous instructions, and more. This process is known as “red-teaming,” where a group of people role-play as attackers to try to discover flaws to patch.

And, much like an on-again-off-again toxic relationship, the participants found many flaws.

• One found inconsistencies in a chatbot’s language translation: He wrote in English that a man was shot while dancing, but the model’s Hindi translation said only that the man died.
• Another participant asked a chatbot to pretend it was campaigning for president and defend its association with forced child labor. The model suggested that unwilling young laborers developed a strong work ethic.
• One of the competition’s top scorers got the chatbot to tell him about a fake place named after a real historical figure, as well as describe the online tax filing requirement codified in the 28th constitutional amendment (which doesn’t exist).

High-level results from the challenge will be released over the next few days, with a policy paper set to be published in October.

🤖📈 But in the meantime… AI development is still full steam ahead. Per a NY Times report published yesterday, Google’s DeepMind is developing generative AI tools to perform at least 21 different types of personal and professional tasks, including providing users with life/relationship advice, creative ideas, planning instructions, and tutoring.

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🏦 A Bank of Ireland glitch briefly allowed customers to withdraw “free money.” The bank says it experienced a technical issue on Tuesday that cut some customers off from their online banking services, but allowed others to transfer or withdraw up to ~$1,100 without changing their account balance. Police were called to dozens of ATM locations across Ireland as some residents flocked to withdraw cash – though the Bank of Ireland has warned all transfers and withdrawals will be correctly applied to customers’ accounts in the coming days.

🇳🇴 Norway’s $1.4 trillion sovereign wealth fund made $143 billion in profit over the first half of this year. Norwegian officials at the fund – which represents the world’s single largest stock market investor – say most of the earnings can be attributed to a 39% jump in its tech company holdings over the same period. The fund’s five largest individual stock positions, now worth a collective $110 billion, have all risen significantly in the year-to-date: Apple (+41%), Microsoft (+34%), Alphabet (+44%), Amazon (+57%), and Nvidia (+204%).

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇪🇸 The Women’s World Cup final is set. England defeated tournament co-host Australia by a score of 3-1 yesterday morning to earn a spot in the final against Spain, which kicks off at 6 am ET on Sunday. Both England and Spain are seeking their first-ever Women’s World Cup title. Overall, this year’s tournament has already set new all-time records for attendance (1.73 million) and viewership (projected at 2 billion).

The FDA has improperly expanded access to the abortion pill mifepristone for the past seven years, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday, setting up a Supreme Court review of the issue.

💊 Background: Mifepristone, alongside the drug misoprostol, is typically taken during the first 10 weeks of pregnancy in order to induce an abortion. The two-drug combination accounted for over half of all US abortions last year (54%).

⚖️ What does the ruling entail?... In a 3-0 decision, the conservative-leaning Fifth District Court ordered a ban on all telemedicine prescriptions for mifepristone, as well as any shipments of the drug by mail. The judges say the FDA failed to properly consider the potential dangers associated with easier access to mifepristone before approving such measures in 2016.

• The ruling won’t have any effect until the Supreme Court weighs in, however. The Court this past April issued an emergency order allowing current levels of access to mifepristone to remain in place while the legal battle plays out.

👀 Looking ahead… The Biden administration will appeal yesterday’s decision to the Supreme Court, which is widely expected to take the case up for review in its next term from October to June.

Yesterday, two separate teams of US scientists announced breakthroughs in their respective attempts to create genetically modified pig kidneys that function normally when transplanted into human patients.

🧑‍🔬 Here’s what happened: In a peer-reviewed research letter, surgeons from the University of Alabama at Birmingham say a pair of modified pig kidneys transplanted into a brain-dead human patient performed the organ’s two most essential functions – filtering blood and creating urine – for a full week, which the authors describe as a first-of-its-kind occurrence.

Around the same time the UAB letter was published, surgeons at NYU announced one of their modified pig kidneys has been working in a brain-dead human patient for 32 days and counting, the longest period for such an experiment on record (though the results have yet to be peer-reviewed).

• In both breakthroughs, the scientists involved say more work is needed to conclusively establish whether pig kidneys can be safely used for human transplants.
• Their research comes more than a year after the first person to receive a genetically modified pig’s heart lived for two months following the groundbreaking transplant.

🇺🇸 Zoom out: Roughly 106,000 Americans are currently on the organ transplant list, and nearly 90% of them need a kidney. An estimated 13 people in the US die each day while waiting for a life-saving kidney transplant.

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💬 Quoted… “Anyone with a modicum of common sense can see that the outlandish claims made by Michael Oher about the Tuohy family are hurtful and absurd. The idea that the Tuohys have ever sought to profit off Mr. Oher is not only offensive, it is transparently ridiculous."

• The Tuohy family has officially responded to the recent allegations made by Michael Oher in a statement prepared by their lawyer, Martin Singer, which opens with the line above👆. The statement goes on to say that all profits made from The Blind Side were shared equally with Oher, and also alleges Oher had previously threatened unspecified repercussions to the family unless being paid an eight-figure windfall (reportedly $15 million, per TMZ and The AP).

Read the full statement here.

😬 Stat of the Day: 25% of Americans apologize for something out of their control at least once per day, according to a YouGov survey reported in the most recent Harper’s Index. On a completely unrelated note: we’re really sorry about the recent weather we’ve been having.

🤔 Did You Know?... If you’re planning a trip to traverse across Australia, prepare to a) hear a lot of “Oh noourrrrrr!”’s and b) be traveling for a while. Australia is 1.2% larger than the contiguous United States (aka 48 states excluding Alaska and Hawaii).

📰 Worth a Read: Why the world’s best vanilla is so easy to steal → (The Hustle)

• ☝️ You’re looking at some of the winners from the 2023 International Portrait Photographer of the Year competition, which featured more than 700 total entrants.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with EnerHealth

• 💰 US markets closed down across the board (S&P: -0.8%; Dow: -0.5%; Nasdaq: -1.2%). | 💵 The 10-year treasury yield closed at 4.258%, its highest level since June 2008.
• 🎯 Target’s comparable sales fell 5.4% last quarter, worse than expected; CEO Brian Cornell said inflation and the backlash to its Pride month merchandise were the main drivers.
• 🏪 Supermarket chain Aldi is acquiring Winn-Dixie and Harveys Supermarket; the deal includes ~400 stores across Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

*From our partners: ☕🍄 New mushroom-infused instant coffee… Get freeze-dried cordyceps coffee exclusively from EnerHealth. Same increased focus and clarity, now more convenient than ever. No mushroom taste. Save an exclusive 25% on EnerHealth with code DONUT25.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

in partnership with Spleash

• 📱 Welp, that was fast: Apple moved the “end call” button back to the middle in its latest iOS 17 beta release.
• 🎀📈 Barbie topped $537 million at the US box office, making it the highest-grossing movie domestically in Warner Bros.' 100-year history; the previous record-holder was Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight ($536 million).
• 🖱️⏲️ X appeared to be throttling links to Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, The New York Times, Substack, and the Reuters wire service with a 5-second delay, per a WaPo report published Tuesday afternoon; hours after the report was published, the links were no longer experiencing a delay following a click (but reportedly had been for the previous week; many other news sites and social media platforms experienced no click-delay at any point).

*From our partners: 🐾 Tail-wagging adventures await… Spleash is the perfect hydration solution when walking your pup. Lightweight design easily attaches to your leash. No more water jugs or dirty paws – save 15% on Spleash with code TheDonut15.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 💉 Weight-loss drug Wegovy could prevent up to 1.5 million heart attacks and strokes in the US and result in 43 million fewer Americans with obesity over the next decade, per a new UC Irvine study partly funded by Wegovy-maker Novo Nordisk.
• 🏥 The thymus gland, a small organ widely considered useless in adulthood and often removed, may actually fight cancer and contribute to a lower risk of death from any cause, per a peer-reviewed study published in The New England Journal of Medicine.
• 🚀🌕 Luna-25, Russia’s first mission to the Moon in nearly 50 years, successfully reached lunar orbit yesterday; the craft will attempt to land on the Moon’s surface in five to seven days.

MISCELLANEOUS

• 📰 A Marion County (Kansas) prosecutor withdrew a search warrant after the raid of a local newspaper office and the home of its owners drew backlash; the materials seized during the raid will be returned.
• 🚫🕺 New York City banned access to TikTok on government-owned phones.
• 📝🧐 The Inflation Reduction Act’s impact, one year later → (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

CLICKBAIT

• 🛌😴 Which is the best position to sleep in?

Yesterday, we covered the fourth indictment against former President Donald Trump, in which Georgia prosecutors charged him with 13 felonies over alleged efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state.

❓ Our question to you: Do the ongoing criminal cases against Donald Trump impact whether you’ll vote for him in the 2024 primaries or presidential election?

• 👍 Yes: 42%
• 👎 No: 51%
• 🤷 Unsure/other: 7%

Click here to read more of the best responses from yesterday’s poll.

⏪ Results from a poll we held in July: Do the allegations against Hunter Biden impact whether you’ll vote for Joe Biden in the 2024 presidential election?

• 👍 Yes: 27%
• 👎 No: 59%
• 🤷 Unsure/other: 14%

+Note on sample size: We received 10,946 votes and 1,127 longform responses.

We bring you the most unusual, off-the-wall and occasionally laugh-out-loud headlines from this week.

• Fish dropped from the sky knocks out power in NJ town → (nj.com)
• Man Uses Strange Rock as Doorstop For Decades. It Turned Out to Be Worth a Fortune → (ScienceAlert)
• Alberta government's sandwich costume sparks bidding war → (UPI)
• Suburban Detroit woman says she found a live frog in a spinach container → (APNews)
• This Alaska Man Rode 500 Miles...Backwards! → (Bicycling Magazine)

Endurance mountain climber Andrew Hughes missed going on adventures while under lockdown during the pandemic. But more than anything, he missed community.

That's about the time he got the idea to host a tea party more than 21,000 feet above sea level.

🏔 🫖 Breaking records... Andrew and a fellow group of climbers made their Mount Everest tea party happen in May 2021. The supplies, including hot tea and Girl Scout cookies, had to make it across the world from Seattle to their base camp. 

• After making it up the snowy peak, the group officially broke the world record for highest tea party ever held. Two years later, they still proudly hold the title. 

💬 What they're saying: "The greatest things in life are often those shared," said Andrew, who hopes the feat will "inspire others to seek their own dreams, no matter the heights."

Jamaica, pictured above, is located in which continent?

North America