Good morning, and Happy Hump Day. In today’s edition:

• 🤔 Are we nearing the era of artificial general intelligence?
• 🇨🇳 China + fentanyl
• 🔫 When a Ring camera gets a combat mod

… and more.

Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~4.59-minute read (1,223 words).

P.S. ICYMI, The DONUT has been nominated for a Webby Award in the category of “Best Email Newsletter from an Independent Publisher.” And, thanks to you all, we’ve gone from being 2% out of first place to leading by 9% basically overnight🙌🥳. Help us solidify the win and vote here (it’s free and only takes a minute or two).

"The imagination is the secret and marrow of civilization."

–Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887)

AI systems can now match or exceed human performance across a range of basic tasks, per Stanford University’s annual AI trends report, signaling that artificial general intelligence – aka AI that’s as generally capable as humans across all cognitive tasks – could soon be on the horizon.

The report found AI systems today either match or exceed human performance in several basic areas, including reading comprehension, image classification, visual reasoning, and competition-level mathematics.

AI is also approaching PhD-level reasoning in advanced topics. As part of their research, the Stanford scientists ran most of the current AI systems on the market through a questionnaire called the GPQA to assess their reasoning capabilities.

The GPQA is designed to be tough; PhD-level scholars can correctly answer questions in their field ~65% of the time, and score an average of 34% in questions outside their field – despite having access to the internet during the test. For context, randomly selecting answers would yield a 25% score.

• Stanford researchers found the AI systems it studied scored between 30–40% on the overall test, led by GPT-4 with 41%.
• However, their report didn’t include Claude 3, the latest chatbot from Anthropic, which recently scored a 60% on the GPQA according to one of the test’s creators.

Many of the largest players in the AI industry are currently racing to build a system that represents artificial general intelligence. Achieving such a concept is the driving mission of ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, and a main priority for the research wings of Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft.

👀 Looking ahead… Tesla CEO and early OpenAI-backer Elon Musk predicted this month that AI will be smarter than all humans within the next year or two – though some experts pushed back on his claim, arguing that current AI systems aren’t close to approximating the human mind.

📊 Flash poll: In your opinion, when – if ever – will an AI system achieve artificial general intelligence?

• Within the next 2 years
• In 2-5 years
• In 5-10 years
• In 10-20 years
• In 20+ years
• Never

Novelist and environmental activist Wendell Berry put it best – the planet binds us together. And with the Commons app, we can save the planet together, too.

• 🫶 Join a community of thousands lowering their carbon emissions every day (and saving $$ along the way).
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Do your part for the planet when you download the Commons app today.

🇨🇳 The US House accused China's government of directly funding America’s fentanyl crisis. A new House report found the Chinese Communist Party is using tax rebates to subsidize the manufacturing and export of illicit synthetic narcotics like fentanyl, a drug which lawmakers say represents the leading cause of death for Americans aged 18-45. US officials also found the CCP has ownership interests in multiple domestic companies tied to drug trafficking, and identified China as the main source of key ingredients used by Mexican drug cartels to synthesize fentanyl.

🇬🇧🚭 UK lawmakers gave preliminary approval for a generational smoking ban. The plan, which was approved by a 383-67 margin in the House of Commons, would ban all UK residents born after 2009 from buying cigarettes. Vaping wouldn’t be banned under the proposed law, though sales of disposable vapes would be heavily restricted. There are still several steps before the smoking ban can be enacted, including a vote in the House of Lords, though analysts say it’s likely to become law later this year.

🇨🇦 Canada returned over 200 islands to their original Indigenous owners. The first-of-its-kind deal in Canada transferred 1.2+ million acres of land off the west coast of British Columbia to the Indigenous Haida Nation. The agreement, which will take effect over a several-year transition period, doesn’t affect private property or local government jurisdiction on the islands.

Starting today and running through Friday, ~4,000 workers at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, will vote on whether to join the United Auto Workers (UAW), in a key election that could provide a boost – or setback – to the union’s stated growth efforts in the automotive industry.

What’s at stake: Late last year, the UAW formally launched one of its largest organizing drives in history, spanning 13 automakers and three dozen factories.

The goal? Leverage its recent record contracts with the “Detroit Three” – Ford, GM, and Stellantis – to significantly expand the union’s membership within the automotive industry.

Monkey, meet back

The UAW currently represents ~150,000 workers across the Detroit Three – and has been trying unsuccessfully to build its membership within other automakers for decades. Should this vote go the UAW’s way, Volkswagen’s Chattanooga auto-assembly factory would be the only one outside of the Detroit Three to be unionized.

• It could also mark the start of a comeback for the UAW, which has declined in popularity over the years. UAW membership has slipped from a peak of ~1.5 million decades ago to ~400,000 today, a total that includes nonautomotive workers.

The opposition argument: Critics, including six Republican governors, say the union’s growth efforts could lead to layoffs and less future investments in the industry.

👀 Looking ahead… A majority of workers at a Mercedes-Benz plant near Tuscaloosa, Alabama, are also calling for a UAW vote.

💬 Quoted… “A vigilant guardian that doesn’t sleep, blink, or miss a beat.”

• In today’s edition of new inventions destined to run straight into regulatory headwinds, we present: the PaintCam Eve, an autonomous home security camera armed with a paintball gun. Created by Slovenian startup OZ-IT, PaintCam Eve uses facial recognition and AI-based decision making to identify unknown visitors to your property and warn them to leave the premises. If the potential intruder fails to comply and take off within the time limit, Eve will start firing paintball pellets intended to deliver a sharp sting and mark the intruder for later police identification. And, for more adventurous homeowners, Eve will also have an option to upgrade to tear-gas rounds when its Kickstarter goes live next week.

🌏📲 Stat of the Day: Apple’s reign at the top of the mobile phone industry was, to quote Biggie, short like leprechauns. The tech giant, which ended Samsung’s 12-year streak as the world’s top-seller of mobile phones last year, enjoyed the title for just three months before handing it back to Samsung due to a 10% drop in global iPhone sales, per a new report from market research firm IDC. Samsung occupied 20.8% of global market share last quarter, followed by 17.3% for Apple.

🤔 Did You Know?... Sloths only poop an average of once per week. And when they do, they typically lose up to one-third of their entire body weight.

📰 Worth a Read: How a ‘Russian James Bond’ Conquered the World of Luxury Hotels → (WSJ)

• ☝️ The city of Honolulu announced a plan to demolish the Ha‘ikū Stairs, a popular – but technically illegal – trail often referred to as the "Stairway to Heaven," due to an abundance of tourists trespassing and/or needing to be rescued.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with Slumber

• 💰 US markets closed mixed (S&P: -0.2%; Dow: +0.2%; Nasdaq: -0.1%).
• 🏦💪 America’s biggest banks – Citigroup, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo – all reported Q1 earnings and revenue that beat or met analysts’ expectations.
• 🌎📈 The International Monetary Fund now expects global economic growth of 3.2% this year, slightly higher than its previous forecast in January.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏀 NBA Play-in Tournament: The Lakers defeated the Pelicans to earn a spot in the Western Conference playoffs; the Pelicans will now play the Kings, who beat the Warriors yesterday.
• 📲 YouTube is cracking down on third-party ad blocking apps used on mobile devices.
• 📺 CNN scrapped its prime-time show with Charles Barkley and Gayle King less than five months into its run. | 📰 NPR suspended a senior editor for failing to secure internal approval before publishing an essay in another publication; the piece argued that the network had "lost America's trust" because of its left-wing bias.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with The WMarketplace

• 💰🤖 VC firm Andreessen Horowitz has raised a $7.2 billion fund aimed at investing in later-stage companies, with part of its focus on the AI industry.
• 🛰️🌐 SpaceX has begun cracking down on Starlink users in countries where the satellite internet service hasn’t been authorized; the move follows a WSJ report that found a growing number of users – including Russian military units in Ukraine – are bypassing country restrictions.
• ☄️ NASA said a piece of space debris that crashed through the roof of a Florida man’s home last month was a piece of equipment from the ISS that was supposed to burn up in the atmosphere.

*From our partners: 🌎🙌 From earrings to botanical bath powder… Shop all things sustainable this Earth Day at The WMarketplace. Home to real brands by real people. See The WMarketplace’s Sustainable Collection here.

MISCELLANEOUS

• 🛣️ The Los Angeles 101 freeway will be closed in some places for several weeks while the city builds what it calls “the world’s largest wildlife crossing.”
• ⚖️ The first seven jurors have been selected for former President Trump's New York hush-money trial. (Background)
• 🏛️ Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) became the first GOP lawmaker to join Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's call to remove House Speaker Mike Johnson over his plans to hold votes on foreign aid. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

CLICKBAIT

• 🤔🥿 Finally, a Pringles holster for your Crocs.

Last year, farmer Mark Peacock took home the Blue Ribbon prize for the largest pumpkin in Australia.

The massive pumpkin, named Tormund in honor of the Game of Thrones character, was about to become animal feed when Mark's friend Adam Farquharson got an idea.

• Adam hollowed out the pumpkin and took a mile-long ride down the Tumut River inside the vegetable, with his trip attracting ~1,000 spectators.
• The daredevil said his only real motive for the stunt was to have fun and make people smile. "It's just something really cool to do," he shared. "I've paddled that river so many times, [but] that's the most fun I've ever had[doing it]." 

🎃 Yum: The pumpkin was then sent off to the farm, as planned, to provide food for Mark's cattle.

Yesterday, when we asked you to vote for us in The Webby Awards, we were in 2nd place by 2%.

• Well, you sure answered the call… we’re currently sitting in 1st place by 9%! Thank you all for voting. We’re overwhelmed by the support and it means the world to the whole DONUT team🙌.
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What were the top-three highest-charting singles of the 2010s? (In terms of weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.)

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1. "Old Town Road" – Lil Nas X ft. Billie Ray Cyrus (19 weeks) 
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