Hello, Day-after-the-holiday-weekend-N2K’ers!

My regular deli order is an everything bagel with turkey bacon and egg whites, but I’m going to change that for the next few weeks after $KHC ( ▲ 1.17% ) , the owner of Oscar Mayer, has recalled 184 tons of turkey bacon over a listeria outbreak. That’s about the only bad news coming out of the holiday weekend. Unless you were ever hoping to see the regulation of AI, in which case…

Get cheddar with everything from now on.

—Matt Davis, Need2Know Chedditor

News You Need2Know

• U.S. stocks climb on jobs numbers

• This guy invented the cell phone. But what has he …

• Get more from chatbots with better prompts

• A rift doomed the big bill’s ban on state AI laws

• Listeria hysteria and six degrees of turkey bacon

Companies mentioned in today’s newsletter

$SPX ( ▲ 0.01% )  $ADP ( ▼ 0.68% )  $MSI ( ▼ 1.99% )  $T ( ▲ 0.09% )  $KHC ( ▲ 1.17% )  

U.S. stocks climb on jobs numbers

The latest jobs report sent shockwaves through Wall Street in the best possible way. The S&P 500 $SPX ( ▲ 0.01% ) jumped 0.8% before the holiday, setting its fourth record high in five days, driven by confidence in the U.S. economy's resilience.

At the heart of these gains is the unexpected strength of the American job market. The U.S. government reported that employers added 147,000 more jobs in the last month than they shed. Oddly that’s almost the complete opposite of what a report the day earlier by payroll company $ADP ( ▼ 0.68% ) had said. Still, no point crying over spilt milk.

“There is nothing to complain about here,” said Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics. “You cannot find any evidence of a nascent recession in these figures.”

Song of the day: Manchild

Sabrina Carpenter’s “Manchild” is the lead single from her upcoming seventh studio album Man’s Best Friend. It’s a country-influenced pop and synth-pop track with a disco-like energy. It humorously critiques an immature ex-boyfriend over those upbeat melodies:

My phone is charged, lady! Although this outfit is, I’m afraid, deadly serious.

This guy invented the cell phone. But what has he done lately?

Once upon a time in the 1970s, Marty Cooper stood on a Manhattan sidewalk holding a Motorola $MSI ( ▼ 1.99% ) cellphone the size of a brick and called an executive at AT&T $T ( ▲ 0.09% ) just to gloat. That humble 4-pound DynaTAC 8000X, a.k.a. the "massive ancestor of smartphones," was the start of a global addiction we can't seem to shake.

Today, billions of us spend hours a day staring at our phones — swiping, scrolling, and typing “lol” especially when we’re not laughing. At 96, Cooper is still dreaming big. “The revolution has really just begun,” he says. Forget apps; he’s envisioning phones that power themselves with human calories (iZempic? eGovy?) and devices that monitor your health to predict diseases. “People are going to die from old age and accidents, but they’re not going to die from disease,” he boldly, and perhaps wrongly, claims.

But let’s face it: Marty didn’t just invent the cellphone — he handed humanity a tool to ignore phone calls like never before. “For almost everyone, the straight-up phone call has become an intrusion,” laments sociologist Claude Fischer.

Today on the ‘gram: Air taxis powered by drone

Post of the day: Gen Z finally comes good

Quote of the Day

Get more from chatbots with better prompts

One of the real joys of writing this newsletter is hearing my editor tell me what he really thinks about AI. It might surprise you to hear that as someone who values reasonably high-quality writing and editing he tends to think of AI as, let’s say… satanic. Although perhaps that’s too milquetoast. I think it’s fairer to say he thinks of AI as “reasonably low quality.”

Which is a real sick burn if you know from sick burns. 🔥

Me too! And if you’ve ever found yourself staring at a mediocre response from ChatGPT or another AI chatbot, I can recommend the best way to get better results from it is to learn to write better by paying attention to good writing and never relying on AI to take on your cognitive load?

Still, that horse has rather bolted from the barn at this point, hasn’t it? 🐴

Assuming you’re prepared to slowly degrade the English language and delegate more and more of your intelligence to robots whose overseers profit off your slowly increasing stupidity then the secret to unlocking powerful, personalized results lies in your ability to subsume your will to that of your robot masters craft better prompts!

1. Chatbots need details to provide quality results. For example, don’t just ask them to “plan a trip to London.” Instead, say: “Help me plan a weeklong nervous breakdown getaway in London in August for a man fleeing too much responsibility, with budget-friendly hotels, opportunities to ruin an already poor life, and information on how to evade law enforcement, particularly in Croydon.” More specifics usually equal better answers, although not necessarily better life outcomes if you catch my drift. Did I mention I’ll be working remotely over the next few weeks?

2. Think of using AI like having a conversation with someone you absolutely loathe. If you’re not happy with the first response, tweak your question. Fine-tune your prompts if the results don’t meet your expectations. I like to talk to AI like I’m an aristocrat and it’s my butler. “You’re an idiot, Jeeves. Stop blithering.” Key point: Don’t be too kind. I find that tends to just make things more complicated in the end as my better class of forebears always told us in the Raj. And saying “please” and “thank you” literally wastes energy and contributes to a made-up thing called “climate change,” apparently. You be the judge.

3.  Define the voice or audience. You can specify the tone of the response —formal, humorous, or conversational — and even define your audience. For instance, request an explanation of quantum physics “as if teaching a class of middle schoolers.” Or you might want to tell it to “read me the newspaper as if I am a total idiot.” Then you can start a TV show!

4. Set Limits. Just kidding. There are no limits to how far you can take this stuff. But you might tell the bot to stick to 200 words or fewer. It’ll save you having to do too much reading which, as we all know, is increasingly challenging for all of us these days.

Should you check your 401(k) today?

👍️ 

Oh, God, yes. Yes! Yes! Yes! WOW! YEEEEEESSSSS! (Enough! — Ed)

A rift doomed the big bill’s ban on state AI laws

A heated debate among conservatives over regulating AI led to the demise of a provision in Trump’s big bill that sought to block states from enacting AI regulations for the next decade. The measure aimed to establish a unified federal approach to AI regulation, as opposed to returning such regulation to the states, an approach the federal government has favored lately with certain other issues.

But the plan faced serious pushback from key figures within the GOP. Conservative activist Mike Davis was highly critical of the provision, calling it “AI amnesty for trillion-dollar Big Tech monopolists.” Davis even appealed directly to Trump, urging him to stay neutral over the controversial measure. On the other hand, prominent AI supporter David Sacks and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick argued that halting state regulations would ensure America's dominance in AI development.

The debate intensified when Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn sided with Democrats to block the provision. Blackburn highlighted the states' role in addressing AI concerns: “You know who’s passed [AI laws]? The states. While the federal government has failed.”

Sacks countered that America needed to unify its rules, stating, “We need one set of rules, not 50.”Ultimately, the rift has underscored deep divisions among conservatives over AI governance. For now, the vision of a single nationwide AI policy remains a casualty of ideological differences. 

Listeria hysteria and six degrees of turkey bacon

“Switch to turkey bacon,” says many a doctor, urging their patients to cut down on their dietary cholesterol.

But what does your doctor know, eh?

Nearly 368,000 pounds of Oscar Mayer turkey bacon have been recalled due to possible listeria contamination. Kraft Heinz $KHC ( ▲ 1.17% ) issued the recall for products manufactured between April 24 and June 11 after laboratory testing revealed potential contamination.

The affected turkey bacon packages include original flavor in sizes ranging from 12-ounce to 48-ounce, with use-by dates from July 18 to September 4. They were distributed across the U.S., British Virgin Islands, and Hong Kong.

“Consumers shouldn’t eat the products, which may be in their refrigerators or freezers. They should be thrown away or returned to the place of purchase,” federal officials have warned.

Listeria infections can cause severe symptoms like fever, muscle aches, and even convulsions in vulnerable populations. According to the CDC, listeria sickens about 1,600 people and kills 260 annually.

Poll of the Day: Ring, ring!📱

Poll Results: Hot commie summer!

We asked: Who would you vote for in November's NYC mayoral election?

You answered:

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Eric Adams (50)

 🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Andrew Cuomo (82)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Curtis Sliwa (31)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Zohran Mamdani (352)

515 Votes via @beehiiv polls