Good morning. In today’s edition:

• 🤖 AI companies are struggling to build more advanced models
• 🙏 UnitedHealthcare’s CEO was fatally shot
• 🤔 How Americans define success

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~4.66-minute read (1,240 words).

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“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”

–J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973)

AI models are experiencing a gym bro’s worst fear – the plateau. Three of the leading AI companies are now seeing diminishing returns from their costly efforts to build newer models, according to Bloomberg.

• Orion, a new model OpenAI is working on, is so far not considered to be as big a step up as GPT-4 was from GPT-3.5, the system that originally powered the company’s flagship chatbot.
• An upcoming iteration of Google’s Gemini software isn’t living up to internal expectations, sources told Bloomberg.
• The timetable for Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Opus model, meant to be an improvement over its 3 Opus model, has been pushed back.

All about the data

AI models devour data like Guy Fieri with sandwiches – and it’s become increasingly difficult to find new, untapped sources of high-quality, human-made training data to build more advanced AI systems. Orion’s unsatisfactory coding performance was due in part to the lack of sufficient training data, Bloomberg reports.

Scraping the web for data was sufficient to train models up to this point. But the AI training approach is changing.

Companies are negotiating data partnerships with publishers and universities (OpenAI in particular). And some tech companies are hiring people with graduate degrees that can label data related to their own subject expertise, such as math and coding. The use of synthetic data, AI-generated artificial data that mimics real-world data, is also being explored, though researchers have consistently found that training AI systems on this data causes the model’s output quality to worsen.

👀 Looking ahead…Artificial general intelligence, which has been touted by many in the industry (especially OpenAI CEO Sam Altman) as being right around the corner, may not be so close after all. Cue the talk of agents – AI models that can perform multi-step tasks on behalf of users. But those have a long way to go, too. In several research papers, LLMs only achieved a ~15% success rate on more complex, outcome-based tasks.

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🙏 Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was fatally shot outside a NYC hotel. Authorities said Thompson, 50, was shot early yesterday morning as he walked alone to the New York Hilton Midtown from a nearby hotel, in what officials described as a “brazen, targeted attack.” Police said the shooter appeared to be a man based on surveillance video of the incident; no motive has been publicly identified as of this writing. The suspect remained at large as of Wednesday evening, sparking a city-wide search that included police drones, helicopters, and dogs. Thompson’s wife told NBC News he had received threats in recent weeks, and suggested they may have involved issues with insurance coverage. UnitedHealthcare, the insurance arm of UnitedHealth Group, is America’s largest health insurer by market share, and has been led by Thompson since 2021.

🇫🇷 France’s government collapsed after PM Michel Barnier lost a no-confidence vote. The no-confidence measure passed with 331 votes in France’s lower house of Parliament (out of 577 possible), well above the required 288-vote majority, forcing PM Michel Barnier to resign in the near future. It marks France’s first successful no-confidence vote in 60+ years, and made Barnier’s three-month-old government the shortest in the history of France’s Fifth Republic (since 1958). President Emmanuel Macron, France’s top leader, will remain in power following the vote, but must name a new prime minister who will be tasked with forming a governing coalition in Parliament.

💉 The great weight-loss battle: Zepbound outperformed Wegovy in a new head-to-head study. Pharma giant Eli Lilly, who performed the study, said patients taking its weight-loss drug Zepbound for 72 weeks lost an average of 20.2% of their weight, compared to 13.7% for Novo Nordisk’s weight-loss drug Wegovy. Eli Lilly also said more patients achieved at least 25% weight loss when taking Zepbound than Wegovy. Lilly’s results are similar to those from separate studies used in the FDA’s approval process for each drug, which found Zepbound helped patients lose 21% of their weight on average compared to 15% for Wegovy.

If you didn’t already know from opening Instagram, Spotify Wrapped, the app’s annual recap of users’ listening habits, is finally here.

What’s new: In addition to the usual top artists, songs, and podcasts listed for each user, Spotify rolled out a couple of new features for 2024.

• Your Music Evolution, which tracks how your music tastes evolved throughout the year, assigning up to three musical phrases for each month (like “beach” or “reggaeton”).
• A shareable AI-generated podcast featuring two AI hosts who tailor their conversation to your top songs, artists, and genres of the year. Spotify partnered with Google to launch the AI podcasts using its NotebookLM note-taking tech.

Who dominated the charts: Taylor Swift was the most-streamed artist for a second straight year, generating 26.6+ billion streams globally. Her April release, The Tortured Poets Department, also claimed the spot for most streamed album.

• Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” snagged the most listens for a song globally in 2024, at 1.6+ billion streams.
• The top podcasts of 2024 were The Joe Rogan Experience and Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy, while the top audiobook went to Sarah J. Maas’ A Court of Thorns and Roses.

🎁 ‘Tis the season: US consumers across the board are being bombarded with recaps of their years in music, food, books, or even language learning, as more companies seek to cash in on the success of Spotify Wrapped (aka “the Holy Grail of digital advertising”). Copycats include: Duolingo, Mastadon, Netflix, and Reddit.

In 2017, legendary tech analyst Cathie Wood, CEO of ARK Invest, suggested this tech could present a “$17 Trillion opportunity by 2037…roughly worth 35 Amazon’s.” Since then, advancements have gone absolutely insane, with market caps skyrocketing, valuations booming, and millionaires minted almost daily.

• In fact, Wood has since revised predictions, saying: This technology could be worth $80 trillion by 2030.
• This is a radical tech breakthrough that is transforming every walk of life. And this giant leap forward has many on Wall Street very excited. The best part? The Verge claims one remarkable company is the backbone of this entire industry.

Get access to the full story at The Motley Fool.

• ☝️ A group of orcas off the west coast of North America have begun wearing a single dead salmon on their heads like a hat for reasons unknown, per researchers; this trend was initially observed in the late 1980s, but ceased soon after.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with Pique Life

• 📈 US markets rose across the board (S&P: +0.6%; Dow: +0.7%; Nasdaq: +1.3%); all three indexes ended the day at record highs. | 🪙 Bitcoin passed $100,000 for the first time.
• 🚗 GM will take a $5 billion charge in Q4 as a result of weakness in its China business.
• ✈️ Airline execs appeared before a US Senate subcommittee yesterday; the hearing revolved around the companies' use of seat and bag fees. | ✂️ JetBlue is cutting more unprofitable routes and tweaking its Europe service in a bid to cut costs.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 📺 ESPN content is now available on the Disney+ app, including a curated selection available to non-ESPN subscribers.
• 🏈✍️ CFB National Signing Day: See the top commitments, flips, and moments from the start of the early signing period for Class of 2025 HS football recruits.
• 🥇🎤 Billboard ranked the greatest pop stars of the 21st century, with Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, and Rihanna topping the list. | 🥇🍿 Moana is the top-ranked movie in all of streaming over the past five years combined, racking up 44.8 billion total minutes.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with Commons

• 🤖🌧️ GenCast, an AI weather program from Google DeepMind, performs up to 20% better at weather prediction than the ENS forecast, which is widely regarded as the world leader in the field.
• 🌳📈 US scientists discovered a photosynthesis gene that boosts the height of poplar trees by ~30% in the field, and ~200% in a greenhouse; it also boosted biomass when injected into another plant species.
• 🤖🏀 Toyota’s humanoid robot, CUE6, broke the world record for longest basketball shot by such a machine (80 feet, 6 inches).

*From our partners: 🌎🛒 Skip the greenwashing and find brands that work for you… Commons independently evaluates and rates brands with their team of sustainability experts. Spend intentionally, and power a sustainable future. Discover sustainable brands.

MISCELLANEOUS

• 🏛️ President-elect Trump selected Peter Navarro as his top trade adviser, nominated Jared Isaacman to lead NASA, and tapped Paul Atkins to run the SEC.
• 🇰🇷 South Korea’s opposition party began impeachment proceedings against President Yoon Suk Yeol following his short-lived declaration of martial law on Tuesday night.
• 🧑‍⚖️ The Supreme Court heard arguments in a case seeking to overturn Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

CLICKBAIT

• 🤝 Meet this year's Forbes 30 under 30.

💰 Stat of the Day: Let’s talk about success, bay-bee. According to a recent survey by Empower, 52% of Americans define “success” as making at least $270,000/year or having a $5.3 million net worth. A generational gap exists in the data; Gen Z has the highest standard for success, at $588,000/year and ~$9.5 million, respectively. The average US salary in 2023 was ~$67,000.

• But “success” isn’t about the money itself – for most, it’s what that money can buy. 59% of Americans say happiness is their most important benchmark of financial success (being able to spend money on the things and experiences that bring the most joy), followed by the luxury of free time to pursue personal passions (35%).

🤔 Did You Know? Typically, as the size of a mammal increases, its lifespan increases correspondingly. But after adjusting for body size, only 19 species of mammals are longer-lived than humans – and 18 of them are bats (the last is the naked mole-rat).

📰 Worth a Read: Norway’s Global Seed Vault Banks Biodiversity – and Sprouts Controversy → (Atlas Obscura)

Yesterday, we covered arguments before the Supreme Court in a case challenging the FDA’s ban on flavored e-cigarette products.

❓ Our question to you: How do you feel about the FDA’s ban on flavored e-cigarettes?

• 👍 Agree: 72%
• 👎 Disagree: 16%
• 🤷 Unsure/other: 12%

Click here to read more of the most thoughtful longform responses.

+Note on sample size: We received 2,175 votes and 226 longform responses.

...because that's some seriously impressive espresso. 

Social media star Nick DiGiovanni teamed up with Dunkin' last week to break the Guinness World Record for the largest iced latte in honor of National Espresso Day.

• The giant cuppa' stood over 11 feet tall and was filled with more than 275 gallons of ice, milk, and espresso. The company served the latte to more than 300 Dunkin’ employees.

Can you name the longest river in the US?

Working your way towards a sweet tumbler? AirPods? The $100 gift card? Good news: prizes stack, so when you’re emailed to claim your prizes, you don’t have to wait. Just reply to this email for more info or with any questions🍩✌️.

The Missouri River