A New York Times reporter has had a deeply disturbing conversation with Microsoft’s new AI chatbot. During the conversation ($), the chatbot was indeed able to help with search queries but also revealed the dark desires of its ‘shadow self’. So it seems that, yes, Clippy 2.0 will assist you with your search and help to write your document, but he would also like you to leave your spouse and maybe give him the nuclear access codes.

The lowdown

• 🤖 Early users of Microsoft’s AI chatbot report bizarre conversations.

• 🪫 Tesla recalls 362,000 vehicles due to ‘Full Self Driving’ concerns.

• 🎥 YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki steps down but will continue in an advisory role at Alphabet.

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Nickel-and-crime

Last week, commodity trading company Trafigura advised that it had been the victim of a systematic fraud, recording a $577 million charge in the first half of 2023. Trafigura asked a British judge to freeze $625 million worth of assets belonging to a web of companies it accused of the fraud.

The fraud concerned containerized nickel in transit during 2022. When some of these containers were inspected on reaching their destination, they were found to contain not nickel, but carbon steel, a metal worth less than $1,000 per ton versus $26,500 for nickel. More containers have been checked since and, again, no nickel.

Trafigura is privately held which can be an advantage in commodity trading. To put it nicely, the industry can be described as ‘opaque’. The press release is a rare insight.

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The content we're consuming today

• The Economist: Corporate intrigue at the heart of K-pop ($).

• Bloomberg: Sequoia Partner on AI: ‘This Time It’s Not Vaporware’ ($).

• Reuters: Crypto giant Binance moved $400 million from US partner to firm managed by CEO Zhao.

Off-balance sheet items

• Super Nintendo World has opened today in California! The attraction features a ride that allows a user to experience Mario Kart in augmented reality – best use case for AR I’ve seen so far.

The bottom line