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Chatting it up with a fake ScarJo not doing it for you? Why not try a conversation with the leader of China? There’s a new chatbot in town and it's based on Xi Jinping. As a matter of fact, it was trained using the ‘thoughts’ of the Chinese leader. I put thoughts in quotes because researchers didn’t use some kind of new mind-reading technology. Chinese officials just used a bunch of his books and

• TikTok users are paying off each other's debts using views as a digital currency.
• The trend involves engaging with videos to boost views, acting as a new kind of crowdfunding.
• Despite some success stories, experts doubt the trend's long-term viability.

"We are paying off

• Interior designer Manuella Moreira shared home-decor mistakes she hates to see in a space.
• Boring powder rooms and blank ceilings are missed opportunities for home decor.
• Repeating too many of the same wood tones or metal finishes can make a room one-dimensional.

Decor trends come and go, but some will always be faux pas.

And

DeepL, the Cologne-based unicorn that has been rivalling machine translation giants such as Google Translate, today announced a new investment of $300mn (€277mn), reaching a $2bn valuation. Born from online dictionary Linguee, the startup was founded in 2017 by Jarek Kutylowski, who’s also serving as the company’s CEO. DeepL offers free and premium AI translation services, with a special focus on

• A trading mistake at Citigroup in 2022 has led to a $78 million fine against the bank.
• The "fat-finger" trade caused a brief flash crash in European stocks in May 2022.
• The brief flash crash caused

SAVE 25%: The Garmin inReach Mini 2 satellite communicator is on sale for $299.99 at Amazon, down from the usual price of $399.99. That's a savings of $100.

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A new actor, but the same white wig. We already knew that Liam Hemsworth was taking over as Geralt of Rivia in Netflix’s adaptation of The Witcher, replacing Henry Cavill. But now we have our first (official, anyway) look at the actor in the role, courtesy of Entertainment Weekly. And he looks like, well, Liam Hemsworth with Geralt’s

• Many gig delivery workers say pay has fallen on the apps since the start of the pandemic in 2020.
• One Instacart shopper shared her tips for maximizing income.
• She recommends learning to parse orders quickly and buying bags and a wagon to carry large orders.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Bonnie Harada, a gig delivery worker

• Lower-income Americans are already in a recession, according to JPMorgan's Matthew Boss.
• The analyst said the US was in a "selective" recession as some consumers .
• 67% of middle-class Americans said they believed their income wasn't keeping up with the cost of living.

The US economy is in a "selective recession," as lower-income Americans are struggling to get by while

It’s been a busy week for AI policymakers. The EU has sealed the deal on its AI Act. Meanwhile, in Seoul, South Korea, 16 world-leading companies have signed the “Frontier AI Safety Commitments,” and a group of countries have promised to work together on mitigating risks associated with the technology.  To say that the past year was the one when the world woke up to AI would be an understatement

UPDATE: May. 22, 2024, 11:25 a.m. EDT This story has been updated with an additional preorder listing at B&H Photo.

When Scarlett Johansson decided against letting OpenAI use her voice for its GPT-4o model, the company may have copied it anyway. It ended up making AI feel less comfortable, not more.