Who Will Win the AI Wars?

Plus: SNL50 stars announced, and egg$ are $o expen$ive!

Author

Matt Davis
February 13, 2025

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You Win Chaumes, You Lose Chaumes

Chaumes, as we all know, is a soft cheese made in the southwest of France in the village of Saint-Antoine, at the foothills of the French Pyrénées. The name literally translates to “stubble.” It’s also pronounced a bit like the English word “some,” and so, for the second day in a row, I humbly offer you a bilingual cheese pun. You’re welcome. Fittingly, today’s cheddlines are all about chaumes people doing better than others:

Today's Cheddlines You Need2Know

Sometimes it also rains.

—Matt Davis, Need2Know Chedditor

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Should You Check Your 401(k) Today?

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(nope)

The race to dominate the world of AI is heating up from its previous tepidity. Billion-dollar offers, debates about regulation, and questions about data security are just some of the hot topics. William Falcon, CEO of Lightning AI, is a former Navy SEAL. We just love it when a tough guy talks AI, so have at it, Mr. Falcon!

Mr. Falcon1 credits his Navy SEAL training with giving him the grit and determination to overcome challenges. “Startups are like a cold plunge every single day for years on end that don't end,” he said. Grrrrr:

This is Mr. Falcon. When is a person too attractive to be taken seriously as a chief executive?

Sorry, I got distracted. Although Elon Musk offered OpenAI for $97.4 billion, OpenAI has not yet been publicly priced, and Mr. Falcon said Musk's offer could be seen as an attempt to drive up the price and potentially slow down OpenAI's progress. "It's just like any publicly traded stock," Mr. Falcon said. "If there are no bids, you don't know what it's worth. You need a bid."

The conversation shifted to the emergence of Chinese app DeepSeek, which claims to have developed AI technology for a fraction of the cost of its competitors. Mr. Falcon urged caution, saying, "We can't validate the $6 million claim without seeing the training process and the data that it was trained on."

Mr. Falcon also addressed concerns about DeepSeek’s data collection practices, given that it is a China-based app. "A model is only as good as the data that it's trying out," he explained. "China, we don't know what that data was. They could have taken history books and rewritten them.”

Mr. Falcon believes that it is better to leave new technologies unregulated for a while until they mature. "I would say that it's a bit sad that Europe has regulated a lot, but I don't think it's that crazy. It's just Europe is older than we are as America," he said, adding that the U.S.'s lack of AI regulation allows us to move faster and innovate more easily.

When asked about the best practical applications of AI, Mr. Falcon advised people to experiment with AI and find creative ways to use it in their respective professions: "If you're in marketing, go grab your Google ads, screenshot the thing, drop it into Chat GPT and say, ‘How can I improve my ad performance?’”

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Coming up this weekend, it’s not just the NBA All-Star game you have to look forward to on the tellyyyy. 

“Saturday Night Live" is gearing up for a grand 50th anniversary this weekend imaginatively called "SNL50: The Anniversary Celebration," set to air on…Sunday. Which is, like, totally missing the point of the “S,” the “N,” and possibly even the “L,” no?

Well, fans can watch the series’s’s’s very first episode from 1975 during the usual Saturday time slot. So, lucky you!

And then the three-hour live event on Sunday will feature a lineup of alumni such as Tina Fey and Eddie Murphy, along with host Steve Martin and a selection of original cast members, including Chevy Chase and Jane Curtin. John Belushi and Gilda Radner won’t be appearing for [checks notes]... Oh wait. Never mind.

Top musical acts such as Paul McCartney and Miley Cyrus are also expected to join. Adam Sandler, Amy Poehler, Will Ferrell, Tom Hanks, and Scarlett Johansson have also signed on. Dan Aykroyd's participation in the anniversary remains uncertain. So, who knows?

Here's five minutes straight of Will Ferrell “breaking” his SNL castmates on YouTube to celebrate:

From @cheddar

You can’t make an omelet without spending more money than ever. That’s because we saw a surprising rise in U.S. inflation in January, hitting 3%, higher than anticipated. The development complicates the Federal Reserve's decision-making, reinforcing the argument for holding off on interest rate cuts.

The Consumer Price Index saw a 0.5% increase from December, marking the most significant monthly gain since August 2023, with the annual pace previously at 2.9%. Core CPI, excluding volatile food and energy prices, also rose unexpectedly by 0.4% month-over-month, reaching a 3.3% annual increase.

The average price of a dozen eggs rose to $4.95 in January, a record despite President Donald Trump’s campaign promise to bring down food prices “on day one.”

Twenty-three days later, Republicans blamed the Biden administration for the price increases, while President Trump pointed to his efforts to manage what he termed “Biden inflation.” It’s almost like politicians tend to blame the bad stuff on the guy before, and take credit for the good stuff for themselves!

The world’s richest man joined President Donald Trump for an extraordinary press conference in the Oval Office on Tuesday, pledging transparency in his cost-cutting work, but offering no evidence for his assertions that the federal government has been corrupted by cheats and officials who had approved money for “fraudsters.”

“We are actually trying to be as transparent as possible,” Mr. Musk said. “So, all of our actions are maximally transparent.”

A particularly striking detail of the press conference was that Musk appeared with his 4-year-old son, X, who stood between the two men when he was not hoisted on Musk’s shoulders or sitting on the floor. As a piece of strategic communication, it was clever, because it softened Musk, although some commentators have said Musk “humiliated Trump” by standing over him.

I’m not sure what to make of it all personally. What do you think?

As Valentine's Day approaches, a day synonymous with sweets and sweethearts, chocolate lovers are in for a bitter surprise this year. The cost of chocolate has spiked significantly.

The primary culprit is the unprecedented increase in cocoa costs. In a startling jump, the price of cocoa has almost quadrupled since early 2024. By December last year, the cost reached a staggering $12,646 per metric ton—a sharp rise from the previous December’s average of $3,182 per metric ton.

This dramatic price hike is largely attributed to severe weather conditions and disease outbreaks that have hit West Africa hard. The region is crucial as it accounts for over 70% of the world’s cocoa production. Something I’ve never heard of called “climate change” also appears to have played a significant role, with heatwaves and excessive rainfall drastically reducing cocoa yields.

Major players in the chocolate industry, like Hershey and Mondelez, are feeling the heat from these cost increases, saying they’re likely to make less money this year (join the club, multinational companies). For consumers, the impact is clear and direct: Chocolate is more expensive this Valentine's Day. Gah!

Probably best to just buy flowers instead, I reckon. Yesterday my wife came in and said, “Just so you know because I know you hate surprises, your son got you a Valentine’s card for Friday.” And now I must figure out whether he should get her one, or if I should get her one, and/or chocolates, or what. This is an extraordinary burden to place on anyone’s shoulders with only 48 hours’ notice. #Romance

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1  I’m not calling him William with a surname that awesome, and I’m not sorry.