Issue 17
December 28, 2023
1 ‘Humanitarian disaster’ overwhelms US southern border
2 New York Times sues ChatGPT-maker
3 Big Tech firms outspend venture capital in AI investment craze
4 Electric vehicle sales slow
5 Ukraine, West shift to defense in war
1958 Colts win NFL title in “Greatest Game Ever Played”
NFL playoff odds from NYT
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1 ‘Humanitarian disaster’ overwhelms US southern border
“We are not equipped to deal with this,” Scott Carmon, a Border Patrol watch commander, said while surveying the muddy encampment. “It’s a humanitarian disaster.” This is the crisis unfolding at the southern border, as migrant encounters once again hit record levels and test the capacity of American law enforcement to contain an explosion of illegal crossings. Last week, the number of apprehensions reached more than 10,000 a day — stretching the resources of the Border Patrol and overwhelming small towns on both sides of the border, where people have been funneled by smugglers consolidating new routes to evade capture by the U.S. authorities. “In terms of migrants per day, December 2023 is bigger than any average we have ever seen,” said Adam Isacson, a migration expert at the Washington Office on Latin America. “Every official who is commenting on it, on all levels, says they’re near or past the breaking point.” (NYT)
2 In opening salvo for future of news, New York Times sues ChatGPT-maker
The New York Times sued Microsoft and OpenAI, the company that created ChatGPT, for copyright infringement. The suit touches off a legal fight over generative-AI technologies with far-reaching implications for the future of the news publishing business. The lawsuit claims that millions of the publication’s articles were used unlawfully to train chatbots, amounting to “billions of dollars in statutory and actual damages”. It is the latest swipe against AI platforms accused of using copyrighted work to train their models. (Wall Street Journal, Economist)
3 Big Tech firms outspend venture capital in AI investment craze
Big tech companies have vastly outspent venture capital groups with investments in generative AI start ups this year, as established giants use their financial muscle to dominate the much-hyped sector. Microsoft, Google and Amazon last year struck a series of blockbuster deals, amounting to two-thirds of the $27bn raised by fledgling AI companies in 2023, according to new data from private market researchers PitchBook. (FT)
4 Electric vehicle sales slow
Electric-vehicle sales growth hit a speed bump in the U.S. this year, and the impact is being felt throughout the industry.
Sales of electric models rose rapidly in the first 11 months of the year, faster than the car market as a whole but at a slower pace than in previous years.
As a result, electric cars and trucks are piling up on dealer lots, causing auto companies to reassess their investment plans. It takes a dealership around three weeks longer to sell an EV than a gasoline vehicle, according to data from car-shopping website Edmunds. A year ago, battery-powered models were selling faster than their gasoline counterparts
American car buyers paid $51,668 for a new EV in November, compared with $44,112 for a new gasoline-powered model, according to J.D. Power data. (WSJ)
5 Ukraine, West shift to defense in war
The long-awaited counteroffensive in eastern and southern regions stalled. The counteroffensive’s fiasco seems sobering in comparison with last year’s emotional rollercoaster, when Russian troops horrified Ukraine by advancing from three directions – only to withdraw from around Kyiv and northern regions and to suffer a string of humiliating defeats in the east and south. This winter, the tables seem to have turned. “Now is the time to switch to defence”, says Kyiv-based analyst Igar Tyshkevich. Kyiv’s manpower and arsenals are too depleted to go on the offensive next year, according to some top Ukrainian military experts. “We don’t have the resources for next year’s operation,” said Lieutenant General Ihor Romanenko, the former deputy chief of the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Polls show that the number of Ukrainians who believe that the war should go on until Ukraine regains all lost territories, including the Crimean peninsula that Russia annexed in 2014, is going down, albeit insignificantly.
Sixty percent believe in Kyiv’s imminent military triumph, as opposed to 70 percent last year, according to a Gallup poll released in October. And almost a third of those polled – 31 percent – think that peace talks with Russia should begin “as soon as possible,” compared with 26 percent last year, the poll said.
With U.S. and European aid to Ukraine now in serious jeopardy, the Biden administration and European officials are quietly shifting their focus from supporting Ukraine’s goal of total victory over Russia to improving its position in an eventual negotiation to end the war, according to a Biden administration official and a European diplomat based in Washington. Such a negotiation would likely mean giving up parts of Ukraine to Russia. (Al Jazeera, Politico)
This day in history
1958 Colts win NFL title in “Greatest Game Ever Played”
the Baltimore Colts defeat the New York Giants, 23-17, in overtime in the NFL Championship Game—a back-and-forth thriller that later is billed as "The Greatest Game Ever Played.” The nationally televised championship—the league's first overtime contest—is watched by 45 million viewers and fuels the NFL's meteroric rise in popularity.
NFL playoff odds from NYT
