Category: Business Insider

• Russia's huge cost in invading Ukraine is fallout for not following its own military doctrine.
• Russian commanders have frequently erred on the basics of military operations, a RAND expert said.
• The Russians also lacked the invasion force size necessary to follow their warfighting doctrine.

The US Army's new manual on Russian tactics is an impressive-looking document. It's 280 pages packed with details and diagrams of how Russian soldiers are supposed to fight.

It is also evidence of a major reason why Russian troops have often fought poorly in the Ukraine war: they are not following their own playbook.

"A lot of the basic elements of that doctrine are sound enough that they could form a basis for successful operations," Scott Boston, a Russia military expert for the RAND Corp. think tank, told Business Insider. "But you do have to follow them."

To be clear, the US Army's manual — ATP7-100.1, "Russian Tactics" — specifies that it "is not meant to represent how the Russians are currently fighting in Ukraine." Nonetheless, armies try to fight according to their doctrine, or the fundamental principles that are intended to guide military operations.

For example, when a Russian division or brigade conducts an assault, units are supposed to advance in multiple echelons — or waves — of troops and tanks, tightly synchronized with reconnaissance, flank protection, engineering, artillery and air defense elements. The goal is to hit hard, move fast, breach the defenses and advance deep into the enemy rear. To minimize the resistance they face, assault troops should concentrate into multiple columns to "spread the attacking units in both width and depth to disperse and reduce the effects of nuclear or precision fires," according to the ATP7-100.1 manual.

But when Russia tried to seize Kyiv with a lightning advance in the opening days of the war, armored columns were sent down narrow, congested roads. Bottled up by roadblocks and ambushes, they were decimated by Ukrainian artillery, drones and anti-tank missiles. Nor does the manual describe how the Russian Army is fighting today. Instead of rapid and well-coordinated maneuver with its once-vaunted Aerospace Forces, attacks rely on obliterating Ukrainian defenses with artillery or glide bombs, or swamping them with large numbers of freed convicts and other "disposable infantry."

The cost has been enormous: an estimated 450,000 Russian casualties and 3,000 tanks destroyed. Moscow's best pre-war units have been decimated, and its best tanks and other equipment wrecked.

"Doctrinally sound attacks can still fail," Boston pointed out. "But a lot of their mistakes were failures to follow doctrinal guidance that is there for good reason. Like, have a guard force out in front so your main body doesn't blunder into combat and become decisively engaged. Don't try to send your entire force down too few roads. Don't leave your support troops unprotected. These were pretty basic things."

Assessing current Russian doctrine is difficult. Much of it is derived from the Soviet era of rigidly controlled mass armies. "The commander directs the fight, is responsible for the main elements of the plan, and generally does not expect initiative or flexibility to nearly the same degree from his subordinates, compared with a good US commander," Boston explained.

Yet military reforms enacted after 2008 were supposed to create smaller and more agile Western-style forces. "When that system failed for them in the initial months after February 2022, they reverted to older, more traditional approaches that eventually included much more emphasis on mass," said Boston, a former US Army artillery officer.

However, the problem may not have been Russian doctrine as much as the overall strategy of the Ukraine war. Soviet plans to invade Western Europe were based on fielding millions of Soviet and Warsaw Pact troops supported by huge stockpiles of weapons and supplies. With an initial assault force of just 180,000 soldiers attacking across a 600-mile-wide front against a smaller but still substantial Ukrainian army, Russia couldn't generate the overwhelming mass that its doctrine counted on. Russian leaders also expected — as did many Western experts — that Ukrainian resistance would collapse and the country would be swiftly occupied. Assault units weren't even briefed about the attack until just before the war began.

"It's not impossible to win battles with an inflexible army, but in order to have a reasonable chance of doing so it helps a lot to have a good plan," Boston said. He pointed to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003: commanders hoped that Iraqi forces wouldn't offer strong resistance, but the invasion plan assumed they might. "It would have been irresponsible for the US military to do otherwise. But Russia's plan was that level of irresponsible. Units were directed to move into Ukraine and seize key locations on aggressive timetables and without meaningful warning or time to plan for things to go wrong. Doctrine and training can only do so much when you're sent to do the wrong thing with the wrong tools for the job."

To be fair, some areas of Russian doctrine have proven quite sound, especially on the defense, where Russia stopped Ukraine's counteroffensive last summer. "There are plenty of aspects to their defense that are entirely consistent with their historical practice and doctrine," Boston said. "And in some cases, they've improved on their doctrine such as by increasing the depth and density of minefields."

One question will tantalize historians for years to come: could Russia have seized Kyiv — and probably won the war — in the first days of the invasion? "This is a tricky counterfactual," said Boston. "If Russia had made more adequate preparations, Ukraine could have noticed and reacted differently. But Russia had some substantial advantages that they squandered with the initial plan and with their slow adaptation over time. If Russia had tried a better plan, things would have gone much worse for Ukraine much more quickly."

Ironically, Boston feels maligning Russian military prowess does a disservice to Ukrainian skill. If the Russian military was that bad, then maybe the Ukrainian military wasn't that good? "We underrate how much damage the Ukrainians did against real Russian military capability if we think that that the Russians were all just terrible," Boston said. "I don't think they were terrible. I think they were terribly wrong-footed by their leadership."

Michael Peck is a defense writer whose work has appeared in Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy magazine, and other publications. He holds an MA in political science from Rutgers Univ. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

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• Debra Crockett decided to retire early eight years ago and moved from the US to Turkey.
• Her Social Security checks are enough to cover her basic monthly expenses given the strength of the US dollar.
• She said moving abroad was the best financial decision she made for her retirement.

Eight years ago, Debra Crockett decided it was time for a change.

She and her then-husband were doing well in the US. They were earning decent wages, owned a home, and had a couple of cars, but after working her whole life — most recently as a director of retail sales — she decided she was ready to see the world.

To make that happen, Crockett retired a few years ahead of schedule, collected early Social Security, and sold her house, cars, and most of her other valuable belongings. Using the housesitting platform Trusted Housesitters, Crockett could live in local homes in her desired travel destinations without having to pay for housing.

When her 90-day visa expired in Europe, Crockett set her sights on Turkey, and she's been there ever since.

"I live here for next to nothing," Crockett told Business Insider.

BI reviewed documents verifying Crockett's expenses. When converted to US dollars, her rent is $463 a month, her electric bills are $25 a month, her water bill is just over $1 a month, and her internet is just over $11 a month.

Even with the nearly $200 it takes to renew her residency in Turkey each year, her Social Security check is $2,929 a month, verified by BI, which is more than enough to cover her basic expenses.

"It's ridiculous to think that you have to have millions or hundreds of thousands of dollars in the bank to survive. I live totally on my Social Security," she said. "I have other funds, but I use those mainly for traveling expenses. I don't have any bills. I paid everything off when I left the US, and I keep a daily report of everything I spend."

By keeping daily notes of her expenses, Crockett can easily detect if she goes over her budget one month, allowing her to adjust her spending for the next month. She also said that one of her biggest expenses in the US was her healthcare — something that she has found is also much more affordable in Turkey.

Crockett is among many Americans who became expats over the past few years, moving from the US to a location abroad with the hopes of living a better, cheaper life. Older Americans, in particular, are benefitting from more affordable bills as the US faces a looming retirement crisis, and many boomers feel like they do not have sufficient savings to retire on time — or at all.

Of course, moving abroad has its challenges, requiring funds to travel and the ability to leave friends and relatives behind. But Crockett said it was important to her that she didn't spend the entire second half of her life working, and it's allowed her to make the most out of her retirement.

"We work all our lives from high-powered jobs to blue-collar jobs. It really doesn't matter. We all work hard and we get maybe a few years of retirement," Crockett said. "That just doesn't seem like it's worth it. So if you can, just sell it all. It's only things, and you can replace it with beautiful memories in the future."

'I'm living a great life on limited expenditures'

Crockett rents her apartment to allow her the freedom to get up and move if she choose, but for now she plans to remain in Turkey. Notably, the Turkish economy is struggling — in March, the country hiked interest rates to 50% to fight "higher than expected" inflation that has burdened Turkish citizens.

American expats don't feel the same financial pressures, though, because the Turkish Lira has weakened against the US dollar, allowing American cash to go much further.

"I'm living a great life on limited expenditures," Crockett said.

"There is a huge expat community here, so there's never a language issue at all," she continued. "You can go down to the beach and just sit with a glass of wine and look at the beautiful scenery, or you can be more adventuresome. There's walking groups, there's jogging groups, there's knitting groups, there's yoga, there's something for everyone here."

BI has previously spoken to retirees in the US who are facing severe financial strains. One 63-year-old said that she doesn't see her Social Security keeping her afloat due to the lingering impacts of the pandemic, which caused her to lose her job and run through her savings.

"I know so many people my age that just don't know what they're going to do," she said. "Other countries take care of their older people, and we should be able to do it, too."

Crockett said that living in Turkey has given her so much financial relief that she doesn't see money being an issue for her as long as she remains abroad. She contributes to the community financially through donations as often as she can, and she said she's grateful for the welcoming atmosphere that greeted her upon her arrival.

"It's eye-opening," she said. "It's an amazing, fulfilling experience to wake up in a country where you know absolutely no one, and you have to rely on your skills of communication, intuition, your skills of just being able to survive. And it's so fulfilling and so rewarding."

Are you living abroad? Did moving improve your quality of life or do you want to return to the US? Share your story with this reporter at asheffey@businessinsider.com.

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• The AI frenzy has shades of dot-com mania but with one big, dangerous difference.
• Professor Erik Gordon noted internet startups had far fewer investors than Big Tech does now.
• Companies like Nvidia are huge and make money, but if they do crash there'll be sweeping fallout.

The AI boom resembles the dot-com bubble — but there's one big difference that makes this craze far more dangerous, says one expert.

The princely valuations of companies like Nvidia reflect investors' excitement about artificial intelligence. They're betting it will supercharge productivity, power transformative products and services, and radically change the global economy.

It was a similar story in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when people lost their minds over the internet's potential to reshape every aspect of their lives.

The internet was revolutionary and AI will be too, Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business, told Business Insider.

"Both themes are right. But that doesn't mean companies with valuations based on those themes were or are good investments," he said.

"Many dot-com companies that drove the internet change went broke doing it. Many AI companies driving as big a change will go broke or lose half their value."

Put another way, even if AI is the next big thing, the valuations of AI companies may still be out of whack, and trailblazers in the space might still crash and burn.

Nvidia has been one of the biggest winners from the frenzy. The chip maker's revenues soared 126% to about $61 billion last financial year, fueling a near-600% rise in net income to about $30 billion.

Growth-hungry investors have driven Nvidia's stock price up six-fold since the end of 2022, catapulting its market value from below $400 billion to some $2.2 trillion.

Deeper pockets, more pain

Gordon, who teaches entrepreneurship and researches many aspects of financial markets and technology, underscored one big difference between the dot-com and AI manias.

While the internet's pioneers were mostly small startups, the leaders of the AI space include established, profitable titans like Microsoft and Alphabet.

"They can lose billions of dollars and not go broke," Gordon said.

But the flip side is dot-com upstarts didn't have massive shareholder bases so when they crumpled, "only brave or foolish investors were hurt."

In contrast, the Big Tech names dominating AI make up a huge chunk of the US stock market's value, and are mainstays of pension funds and retirement portfolios.

"The giant AI pioneers won't go broke, but if AI losses drive their stock prices down, lots of investors will suffer," Gordon said.

He's previously drawn a line between the dot-com bubble and the tech-stock boom.

"This isn't a fake-companies bubble, it's an order-of-magnitude overvaluation bubble," the academic told BI in early 2022.

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• Surrenne, a luxury wellness and longevity club, has just opened in London's Knightsbridge.  
• The four-floor subterranean space features a gold-leaf ceiling, a snow shower,  and the UK's only Tracy Anderson studio.
• You can apply to be a member for $12,500 a year. If that's not in your budget, here's a visual tour through the elite space. 

In April a new luxury wellness and longevity club sprung up in London's affluent neighbourhood of Knightsbridge.

Though, sprung up may not be the right choice of word.

Surrenne is a four-floor, 2,000-square-meter gym and spa built underneath The Emory and Berkeley luxury hotels near Hyde Park, right in the heart of one of London's most expensive and exclusive districts.

The space has been designed by Inge Theron, creative director at the Maybourne Hotel group and founder of FaceGym. From temperature to smell to color, she's made every detail of Surrenne almost too perfectly tasteful.

But there's science behind her choices: psychologists were consulted about the colors and lights of each room to enhance the ambiance. Meanwhile, the sound systems have been enhanced with AI to ensure you never hear the same song twice during your stay.

The serene elegance of Surrene is so calming that it's easy to forget you're in the depths of London. Only the subtle waft of what smelled like sewage in a few corners of the club acted as a brief reminder during my visit — a teething issue the staff were covering up with candles.

Besides the beautiful decor, Surrenne has gathered together an all-star line-up of the best health, fitness, and beauty gurus.

"We have curated a group of world-famous thought leaders at a level never seen before in the UK, the people pushing every level of human performance, whether that be through science, diagnostics or fitness," creative director Theron told Business Insider.

Products from Dr. Lara Devgan and Stella McCartney are on offer, as is Theron's own brand FaceGym; nutritionist Rose Ferguson was consulted on the café menu, and Dr. Mark Mikhail from 3 Peaks Health is the club's in-house medical consultant.

And then there's Tracy Anderson.

The celebrity-favoured fitness icon has secured an entire floor at Surrenne for her first-ever studio in the UK — the only other in Europe being in Madrid.

Membership to all of this beauty and expertise will set you back $12,550 a year after the $6,250 joining fee. The club is free to use for guests staying above ground at The Emory or The Berkeley hotels.

However, membership numbers are initially limited to 100 and Theron is looking to fill the club with a like-minded community eager to enhance every aspect of their health and well-being.

She's already selected a few taste-makers to get the community going.

"It's a relatively small number of people who have the same interests, they perhaps travel a lot for work and pleasure but really want that feeling of belonging to the best club in London right now and having their health & fitness journey mapped out for them — all under one roof," said Theron.

If you're unlikely or unable to make the cut, here's a look at what you get as a member of Surrenne.

On the first floor, guests are welcomed to Surrenne by a cafe with a menu curated by nutritionist Rose Ferguson

Books and supplements are on offer for guests while they enjoy a menu curated by model-turned-nutritionist Rose Ferguson.

Green juices and expensive salads are on offer, but as Inge Theron told BI, Surrenne is for those who are serious about their health but may also like to "indulge in a glass of champagne with their friends around the pool."

Next to the cafe, an automatic door filled with water and bubbles slides open to the pool and steam rooms.

A gold-leaf ceiling covers the 22-meter pool, which also enjoys the club's only source of natural light.

Underwater speakers enable members to listen to podcasts of music as they swim.

At the end of the room, guests can use the pink-quartz-lined sauna and steam room. There's also a snow shower, which is exactly what it sounds like — a small space with a shower head out of which it snows, intended as a more gentle approach to cryotherapy.

"You may find other great wellbeing companies or amazing spas but I believe Surrenne is the first of its kind to deliver on both human and space design at this level," said Theron.

The second floor of the wellness retreat features a traditional gym space and yoga studio.

The gym was kitted out with the latest equipment from Technogym and Peloton for members to use with the support of on-hand personal trainers.

The gym equipment trolley could be wheeled to hotel guests' room for those seeking a more private training experience. During the summer months it will be wheeled out to Hyde Park for outside gym sessions.

Next door was a yoga studio big enough for six guests at a time and fitted with a screen covering an entire wall. The hydrogen water tap offered yogis different levels of alkaline or acidic water.

The changing rooms at Surrenne provide guests with everything they might need.

Lockers are fitted with Alice Temperley-designed silk robes, Dyson hair straighteners are available, and a valet service allows guests to leave all their sweaty clothes behind when they leave — next time they return a set of clean clothes will be sitting in their locker.

On joining members will also get a welcome pack with toiletries and Alo-branded gymwear.

On the third floor down, a reception space and retail zone welcome visitors to a floor of treatment rooms and longevity services.

Seven treatment rooms are available for guests at Surrenne, including a couples' room, a hammam, an ashiatsu massage room, and a therapeutic infrared sauna.

Theron told BI that technology-based treatments were an absolute must-have when designing the club.

"LED, RF, EMS, Oxygen, Vitamin Infusions, Ultrasound, non-invasive but really what the clients are looking for now," the creative director said.

The treatment beds have silk sheets — to avoid creases after you've had a facial, of course — and hand-blown glass "artists' palettes" for brushing treatments onto the body.

The walls of treatment rooms are handpainted in soft tones of orange to represent the sunrise and sunset and increase serenity.

Guests get four body treatments or facials included in their annual membership as well as a full-body medical consultation.

The longevity suite features a hyperbaric chamber and Dr. Mark's office — where medical consultations and blood tests take place.

"The idea is that having a GP offering on-site, with an open door policy will in the log run help our members with knowledge of their own bodies and promote preventative care, so that you don't have to get to the GP," Theron told BI.

"Our medical practitioners are not a replacement for your own GP – but a more convenient way to be on top of your own health and wellbeing."

Finally, the fourth floor of Surrenne is dedicated to fitness pioneer Tracy Anderson.

Members get access to the UK-exclusive Tracy Anderson studio at Surrenne, though only 12 times a year. If they want more regular classes, they'll come at an additional cost of $50 a class. Hotel guests pay around $65 per class.

The room itself is heated to 75 degrees Fahrenheit, a little cooler than a hot yoga class. With bouncy floors and resistance bands hanging from the ceiling, it's easy to see why so many obsess over the Anderson "method."

"I believe so much in this. I've been doing it for 10 years," said Kelly, one of the enthusiastic Anderson-coached instructors at Surrenne.

But while pop music plays and guests come to sweat it out for 50-minute classes, like all things at Surrenne, the club's members must take it seriously.

"We don't talk during the method," said Kelly earnestly. "It's a mind-body connection"

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• Warren Buffett made several jokes about his age during Saturday's annual shareholder meeting.
• Buffett will be turning 94 this year and has already made plans for a successor.
• "I shouldn't be taking on any four-year employment contracts," Buffett joked, per CNBC.

Warren Buffett is very aware that he won't be at the helm of Berkshire Hathaway forever.

The 93-year-old Berkshire Hathaway Chairman took the stage on Saturday at the company's annual shareholder meeting to reflect on how the company should operate when he no longer calls the shots.

Buffett, who took over the investment company in 1965, has long expressed the desire to keep making decisions at Berkshire Hathaway for as long as he can — he said during the meeting that "anybody that wants to retire at 65 would be disqualified from being CEO of Berkshire."

But the multi-billionaire acknowledged, humorously at times, that he does have his limits.

Buffett expressed thoughts about how the company will move forward without him — though the nonagenarian said he felt "fine" at his age.

"I know a little bit about actuarial tables and I would say this: I shouldn't be taking on any four-year employment contracts like several people are doing in this world," Buffett said, per CNBC.

Buffett said that Greg Abel, his hand-picked successor and former CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Energy, would take control of investing decisions when he passed.

"I would leave the capital allocation to Greg and he understands businesses extremely well," Buffett said during the meeting's Q&A portion, per CNBC. "If you understand businesses, you'll understand common stocks."

Beyond his own mortality, Buffett also reflected on the death of his longtime business partner and friend, Charlie Munger, who died in November of last year. During Saturday's presentation, the chairman accidentally referred to Abel, his new right-hand man, as Munger.

Abel took it in stride, calling it a "great honor" to be mistaken for Munger.

Buffett also discussed his decision to slash the company's stake in Apple, aired his concerns about AI and deepfakes, and articulated his hope to keep going long enough for next year's shareholders meeting.

"I not only hope you come next year, but I hope I come next year," Buffett said in his sign-off.

Representatives for Buffett did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

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• Tesla tested its Full Self-Driving in San Francisco's Sunset District, The Information reported.
• An ex-Tesla employee told the outlet that the car often hesitated to make a left turn in the area.
• These are some of the roads in the neighborhood Tesla could have had to deal with.

Tesla's driver-assistance feature had a difficult time dealing with left turns in a large San Francisco neighborhood, prompting the company to deploy dozens of test drivers to try to fix the issue earlier this year, a former Tesla employee told The Information.

One of Elon Musk's major promises — autonomous taxis — hinges on Tesla's ability to improve its Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology, a driver-assistance feature that can change lanes, enter and exit highway ramps, recognize traffic lights and signs, and self-park under driver supervision.

FSD differs from the company's Autopilot feature, which is essentially an advanced cruise control mode that can also auto-steer within clearly marked lanes, according to Tesla's website.

The EV maker has encountered various technical and legal issues with the FSD system as it races to meet Musk's ever-shifting deadlines — the CEO announced on X last month that he plans to unveil Tesla's robotaxi in August.

A former employee told The Information that one such technical problem Tesla recently encountered was driving its vehicles in San Francisco's Sunset District, a neighborhood bordered by Golden Gate Park to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the west.

As The Information noted in its report, some of Sunset's roads have dedicated lanes for public transportation — although that's not unique to the neighborhood.

Here's the city's Municipal Railway (MUNI) light rail bisecting Judah Street in the Sunset:

This fixture of Sunset's streets also comes with turn restrictions. Drivers are forbidden in some intersections from making left turns, U-turns, and rights on red.

One major road that borders the north of Sunset, Lincoln Way, is divided by barriers or narrow medians. Drivers have intermittent opportunities on the road to make left turns — some protected and others unprotected — while other parts of Lincoln Way restrict drivers from making any left turns at all.

It's unclear if other aspects of Sunset's grid trip up Tesla's FSD more than other San Francisco neighborhoods. A Tesla spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

Tesla's team, however, found that drivers in the Sunset often had to intervene with the vehicle's FSD by taking control of the wheel, a former Tesla employee told The Information.

To address the problem, Tesla deployed dozens of test drivers and had engineers focus on providing software updates that could improve the FSD experience in the neighborhood, the source said.

The report didn't state whether those efforts vastly improved the feature in the area.

Tesla still dominates in San Francisco

San Francisco as a whole — with its dense population, restricted and one-way streets, as well as a vast artery of public transportation — can be a tricky city for novice drivers to navigate.

Another street that was once notoriously difficult for Tesla's FSD to work in was Lombard Street, a steep and windy road northwest of San Francisco. In 2021, one YouTuber, Tesla Raj, recorded himself constantly intervening with the system as the car veered toward the road's edges. The video also showed that the FSD system would, at one point, hallucinate objects around the street, quickly blinking images of a car or human figure on the screen.

John Bernal, a former Tesla employee who worked with the Autopilot team, told The Washington Post in 2023 that Tesla engineers coded invisible barriers into FSD specifically for Lombard Street instead of making broader changes to the software.

Still, the city is teeming with Teslas. Data from S&P Global Mobility showed that the brand made up nearly one-fourth of all new-car registrations in the city in March 2023.

A Business Insider reporter was immediately able to flag down a Tesla driver who was stopped at an intersection in the Sunset.

The driver said she enjoyed her first Tesla Model X so much that she purchased the second Tesla she was driving four months ago. When asked about using the FSD feature in the Sunset, she told BI that she had "no problems" with it.

"I like it," the driver told BI.

Next to a cheaper Tesla model, FSD remains a key part of the EV maker's valuation since Musk has promised for years to deliver fully autonomous cabs.

The CEO once said in 2022 that achieving self-driving technology is "really the difference between Tesla being worth a lot of money or worth basically zero."

Yet, seven years after FSD's release in late 2016, Tesla has yet to receive any regulatory approval to test autonomous cabs on public roads, and the term Full Self-Driving remains a bit of a misnomer since it requires an operator's supervision at all times.

The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) accused the company in 2022 of false advertisement by using the term and claiming that the technology is autonomous in ads despite FSD's limitations. Tesla argued in defense that the DMV is violating its free speech rights and that the complaint has no legal standing because regulators took too long to make the allegations, The Los Angeles Times reported.

Tesla also still faces several lawsuits that blame the company's Autopilot, a less-advanced driver assistance technology, for fatal collisions.

In April, the company settled a lawsuit from the family of Walter Huang, who died in 2018 after his Tesla crashed into a concrete barrier while the vehicle was in Autopilot.

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• OpenAI CEO Sam Altman described the ultimate AI app to the MIT Technology Review.
• He envisions a 'super-competent colleague,' a major upgrade from ChatGPT, which he called "dumb."
• Altman's vision is that AI will take on real-world tasks — not just function as a chatbot.

In Sam Altman's vision of the future, AI is a little intimidating.

"What you really want," the OpenAI CEO told the MIT Technology Review, is a "super-competent colleague that knows absolutely everything about my whole life, every email, every conversation I've ever had, but doesn't feel like an extension."

And they're self-starters that don't need constant direction. They'll tackle some tasks, presumably simpler ones, instantly, Altman said. They'll make a first pass at more complex tasks, and come back to the user if they have questions.

The bottom line is that Altman wants AI to function as more than just a chatbot. It should help people accomplish things in the real world, he said.

That would be a massive step up from what OpenAI offers right now.

Altman reportedly referred to ChatGPT as "incredibly dumb" even though workers are already using it to accelerate their workflows, develop code, write emails, and more. So, there's no telling how much more productive we'll get once Altman's magical model colleague hits the market.

Altman didn't specify when this tool will be available and how advanced AI must be to support it. The company's other offerings, like the video generator, Sora, and image generator, DALL-E, still require considerable guidance to complete tasks. They also aren't designed to perceive information from the environment and use it to achieve specific goals.

But OpenAI's forthcoming language model, GPT-5, might be a step in that direction.

A source who's seen it previously told BI it was "materially better" than existing models. The source also said that OpenAI is developing a service where users could call an AI agent to perform tasks autonomously.

Sources have said GPT-5 might be out mid-year. Altman, however, isn't saying much.

"Yes," he simply told reporters this week at an event in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he was asked when OpenAI would release GPT-5.

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• Shane Guffogg is a multi-media abstract artist with synesthesia, meaning he "hears color." 
• Guffogg worked with AI experts and musicians to compose music that corresponds to his paintings. 
• He believes AI is still a tool that "needs oversight" but it's enhanced his creative process. 

This is an as-told-to conversation with Shane Guffogg, an American artist who launched "At the Still Point of the Turning World – Strangers of Time," an exhibition of 21 paintings at the Venice Biennale earlier this month. This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

I have synesthesia, which means I hear color.

So, what I'm listening to when I paint is important. I listen to Indian classical music, Gregorian chants, and some obscure composers such as György Ligeti, Leo Ornstein, and Terry Riley. The music sparks my creativity and allows me to be completely present and in that moment.

For years, I've been preoccupied with what my paintings might sound like. The AI revolution pushed me to search for experts who could help me. My first point of contact was Radhika Dirks, an AI and quantum computing expert. We had a couple of Zoom sessions, and she told me — to the best of her knowledge — that no AI program could help me. Instead, she suggested I create a visual alphabet that matched the musical chords I heard in my mind to colors.

I thought it could be a way to propel my creativity. It also built upon the idea of an unconscious alphabet that has informed my art throughout my career.

I met with musicians and AI experts to create a visual alphabet

I started by looking for musicians to collaborate with and met Anthony Cardella, a young, incredibly gifted pianist in Los Angeles. He's a Ph.D. student at USC and happened to know — and even play — many obscure composers I listen to when I paint.

We started collaborating. We would sit down and examine my paintings together. I would zoom in on a color in Photoshop, look at it, and sensorially feel the musical note. Then I would tell Anthony. I'd say, for example, I think that's the color of the note B. He'd hit the B, and I'd say, "No, that's not it; try a B sharp?" After a few trials, he'd suddenly hit the right notes. I would know because the colors would begin to vibrate for me. Together, we've charted chords that correspond to 40 colors.

Soon after, I met an AI researcher named Jonah Lynch through mutual contacts. He works at the intersection of the digital humanities and machine learning. I invited him over to my ranch in central California and explained the work I had been doing and how I created my paintings. We had long discussions about art, poetry, and creating an AI algorithm that could be fed the chords.

He developed a program to "read'' my paintings and convert them into music. I gave him the main colors I used in each painting and the chords I hear when I see those colors. Jonah watched videos of me painting, studied the movement of my hands, and wrote software that sampled images of the paintings, following my hand movements, and assigned each color sampled from the paintings to its corresponding chord. Then, he fed this sequence of chords into a neural network that has memorized most of the last 500 years of keyboard music. He prompted the network to "dream" of new sequences based on the color-chord sequences and the history of Western music to create pages of sheet music.

When I heard that music played back to me, it brought tears to my eyes. It was just a rough version of what I heard while painting, but I thought, "There it is."

I took the music back to Anthony, the pianist. Amazingly, I could point to the sheet music and tell him what compositions I was listening to while painting, and he'd say, "Yes, I can see it in the chords." The Indian ragas, the Gregorian chants, the Ligeti, and Ornstein — they were all there.

Still, the music was largely a series of chords at that stage. Anthony said we could have melodies if we rearranged it a bit.

AI is still a tool that needs human oversight.

We composed music for several paintings and have played it for audiences worldwide. We held a concert last month at the Forest Lawn Museum in Los Angeles, where I also had a few paintings in a show. The audience could look at the paintings while Anthony played, which was a profound experience. A couple of people cried.

At the launch of my latest exhibition during the opening week of the Venice Biennale, Anthony played the world premiere of a sonata he composed inspired by my painting, Only Through Time Time is Conquered, to a live audience. After the performance, I talked to several people, and they said they could see where the colors and the notes met on the painting. It was something they had never experienced.

I know many people are very afraid of AI, and I, too, see it as a tool that needs human oversight. It's not a means to an end. Still, it opened up many possibilities and enhanced my creative process. I don't know if I could have unlocked the musicality in my paintings in a real way without it.

Hear the sonata below:

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• Nick Fuentes, a far-right commentator, is set to return to X.
• Elon Musk bought X in 2022, promoting free speech absolutism.
• Musk has faced backlash and advertisers withdrawing from the platform since taking over.

Nick Fuentes, a controversial far-right political commentator and live streamer, is set to return to X.

Elon Musk, the platform's CEO since 2022, wrote, "it is better to have anti whatever out in the open to be rebutted than grow simmering in the darkness."

Fuentes's extremist past includes attending a 2017 white nationalist rally in Virginia, criticizing interracial marriage, and defending Jim Crow-era segregation.

The Anti-Defamation League describes Fuentes as a white supremacist, anti-semite, and 2020 election-denier "who seeks to forge a white nationalist alternative to the mainstream GOP."

Fuentes has denied the Holocaust and said "perfidious Jews" should be executed, the Times of Israel reports.

He has also praised Hitler, calling him "cool."

When Elon Musk bought X for $44 billion in October 2022, he set out to defend free speech absolutism on the platform.

Contentious figures including Donald Trump, Kanye West, Jordan Peterson, and Andrew Tate have had their accounts restored.

Musk has remained steadfast in his absolutist views and even doubled down when a slew of advertisers withdrew from the platform in 2023.

When Musk first took over the platform, the use of the N-word jumped by almost 500% as trolls tested the limits on free speech.

Nick Fuentes' flirting with hate-speech has meant he has had a rocky relationship with X and Twitter before it. He was first banned from Twitter in December 2021 for flouting moderation rules and was re-banned in October 2022 after creating a new account under Musk's leadership.

At the time, Musk said he didn't want the social media platform to become a "free-for-all hellscape."

Fuentes made a very brief comeback in January of 2023 when he was resuspended only after one day back on the platform, Reuters reports.

His final post before his reappearance this week was made on January 25, 2023, when he posted an antisemitic chart indicating which media figures have Jewish heritage. "Who controls your mind?" the image is titled.

Business Insider's Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert reported that despite Musk identifying as a "free speech absolutist," the same embrace of free speech does not extend to his critics.

Musk has threatened to sue bloggers for critical coverage of the mogul and fired employees for disagreeing with him, per Tangalakis-Lippert.

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• Democrats are pressuring Warren Buffett to reopen his wallet for political donations.
• The billionaire's influence could swing results in Omaha, clearing a victory path for Biden.
• Meanwhile, conservatives are backing efforts to push Nebraska to a winner-take-all system.

The pressure is on for Warren Buffett to reengage in political donations — something he's avoided for the last five years.

Democrats are counting on the billionaire's political generosity to clinch key races in the 2024 election, Bloomberg reported.

"Anytime that the Buffetts get engaged, it signals to other donors that it's more important to give," Jane Kleep, the State Democratic Party chair, told Bloomberg.

In a scenario typical of American elections these days, the presidency could come down to Omaha's single electoral vote. Nebraska has five electoral votes in total up for grabs, but the state is just one of two that awards votes to the winners of each congressional district rather than a winner-takes-all system.

In what is expected to be a closely contested election, it will come down to several battleground states to determine whether President Joe Biden or Donald Trump triumphs. If Biden secures Omaha's vote and wins Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin (a trio he swept in the 2020 election), he will keep the White House.

Many are confident that Buffett's hometown, which some call "Joemaha," will go for the incumbent, who won the corresponding congressional district in 2020. But Trump won the district in 2016, leaving others anxious about Biden's chances, according to Bloomberg.

It could all depend on how much money Democrats have to spend in the district.

"I do hope they get more involved in this cycle in a visible way, because Buffett brings all the good luck," Kleep told Bloomberg.

Conservatives, meanwhile, are campaigning to change how Nebraska's electoral votes are disbursed. Trump is pushing for legislation to shift Nebraska to a winner-take-all system.

"I am steadfast in my commitment to get winner-take-all over the finish line, thereby honoring our constitutional founding, unifying our state, and ending the three-decade-old mistake of allocating Nebraska's electoral votes differently than all but one other state," Republican Gov. Jim Pillen tweeted in April, committing to sign the bill if it makes it to his desk via a special legislative session.

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