The big Bard blunder 🤖

On Wednesday, Google's parent company, Alphabet, lost $100B in market value after its new artificial intelligence chatbot, Bard, produced a factual error in an ad demo.

09 Feb

"Believe you can and you're halfway there."

— Theodore Roosevelt

👋 Hola! Rallie here, the newsletter serving you the scoop so you can dominate the dinner table.

On the menu:

  • 🤖 The big Bard blunder

  • 📈 Tether reports stability

  • 🇺🇸 State of the Union

  • 💸 Refresh: Crypto Coins

  • 💯 Top tweets

Rallie Recapdo

🤖 Google unveils Bard... but the launch was a bit of a blunder.

  • On Wednesday, Google's parent company, Alphabet, lost $100B in market value after its new artificial intelligence chatbot, Bard, produced a factual error in an ad demo.

  • In the ad that ran on Google's Twitter feed, the company described Bard as "a launchpad for curiosity" with an accompanying GIF that prompting Bard with the question, "What new discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope can I tell my 9 year old about?" 

  • The chatbot then responded, claiming the telescope took the very first pictures of "exoplanets," or planets outside of earth's solar system. Unfortunately, it was actually the European Southern Observatory's telescope that was the first to take the shots back in 2004, a fact confirmed by NASA. Whoopsie.

  • The ad aired just hours before Google's Paris launch event of Bard, unveiling it as the future of the company.

  • The blunder saw Alphabet shares slide as much as 9% during trading hours, balancing out by the day's close.

  • Bard is Google's AI product to compete with Microsoft's headline-dominating ChatGPT. Hey, all PR is good PR, right?

💵 Tether: the stablecoin that's looking more stable. 

  • This morning, Tether, the issuer of crypto's largest stablecoin, USDT, said it generated $700M in net profit in Q4 of 2022, which the firm has used to boost its reserves.

  • This means that Tether is making good on its promise to hold enough cash reserves to back the USDT token, despite processing $21B in redemptions last year.

  • Stablecoins are tokens that are meant to always be fully backed by an equivalent value of reserve assets—meaning when someone wants to sell one unit of USDT, they get $1 USD in return.

  • Paolo Ardoino, Tether’s chief technology officer, had this to say, “After a tumultuous end to 2022, Tether has once again proven its stability, its resilience, and its ability to handle bear markets and black swan events, setting itself apart from the bad actors of the industry."

  • Time will tell how stable Tether stays. Now say that 5X fast.

Headlines That Hit

Why We Rallie

On Tuesday, in his State of the Union address, President Biden said the U.S. must ‘finish the job’ on reproductive rights, paid leave, and childcare, specifically addressing some of the major issues of concern to women. From calling for advancing paid family and medical leave and expanding the Child Tax Credit, to LGBTQ+ rights and abortion, the President focused on issues expected to be major motivators for women voters in the 2024 election.

In a strong stance on reproductive rights, Biden had this message, “The Vice President and I are doing everything to protect access to reproductive health care and safeguard patient safety. But already, more than a dozen states are enforcing extreme abortion bans. Make no mistake about it: If Congress passes a national ban, I will veto it.” 

Read his full speech here.

Rallie Refresh: Crypto Coins 

We've all heard about Bitcoin, but there's other types of cryptocurrency too! Keep reading to learn about other cryptocurrency categories that exist:

  • Stablecoins: as mentioned earlier (Tether!), stablecoins are cryptocurrencies that attach their market value to something external, like fiat currency.

  • Altcoins: any coin or token that’s not Bitcoin i.e., a coin or token trying to be an alternative to Bitcoin.

  • Memecoins: cryptocurrencies inspired by memes and internet jokes. They aren’t really meant to be taken seriously, but some like Dogecoin and Shiba Inu Coin, have become popular over time—spiking their value.

  • Shitcoins: cryptocurrencies that have or are expected to drop to zero in value.

Trending Tweets 

Our fav funnies to get you through the day. 

Congrats, you made it to the end! 

That's all for today. Stay hungry & we'll catch you next time. ✌️ 

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DISCLAIMER: This is not financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions.