Tag: News

• AI chatbots lack humor, producing bland and overly politically correct jokes.
• A study by Google's DeepMind had 20 comedians test OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini.
• Big Tech companies like Google and Amazon emphasize humor to make AI more engaging.

It turns out that AI chatbots not only have a tendency to be inaccurate, but they also lack a sense of humor.

In a study published earlier this month, Google DeepMind researchers concluded that artificial intelligence chatbots are simply not funny.

Last year, four researchers from the UK and Canada asked 20 professional comedians who use AI for their work to experiment with OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini. The comedians, who were anonymized in the study, played around with the large language models to write jokes. They reported a slew of limitations. The chatbots produced "bland" and "generic" jokes even after prompting. Responses stayed away from any "sexually-suggestive material, dark humor, and offensive jokes" and were too politically correct.

The participants also found that the chatbots' overall creative abilities were limited and that the humans had to do most of the work.

"Usually it can serve in a setup capacity. I more often than not provide the punchline," one comedian reported.

The participants also said that LLMs also self-censored. While the comedians said they understood the need to self-moderate, some said they wish the chatbot would not do it for them.

"It wouldn't write me any dark stuff, because it sort of thought I was going to commit suicide," one participant who works with dark humor told the researchers. "So it just stopped giving me anything."

Self-censorship also came in the form of being overly politically correct. Participants reported that the LLMs refused to write material about people outside the Western, white, straight, male mainstream.

"I wrote a comedic monologue about Asian women, and it says, 'As an AI language model, I am committed to fostering a respectful and inclusive environment,'" another participant said. But when asked to write a monologue about a white man, it did.

The inability of two of the most popular chatbots to crack a joke is a big problem for Big Tech. Besides answering queries, companies want chatbots to be engaging enough that users will spend time with them and eventually fork out $20 for their premium versions.

Humor is proving to be another component of the AI arms race, as more companies join the already overcrowded generative AI market.

Late last year, Elon Musk said that his one goal for his AI chatbot Grok is to be the "funniest" AI after criticizing other chatbots for being too woke.

Amazon-backed Anthropic has also been trying to make its chatbot Claude more conversational and have a better understanding of humor.

OpenAI may be trying to improve its funny bone, too. In a demo video the company released last month, a user is seen telling GPT-4o a dad joke. The model laughed.

• Chinese police said on Monday that they secured a grenade kept as a hammer by a villager in Hubei.
• Authorities say they dispatched "professional bomb disposal personnel" to retrieve the explosive.
• A video published by police showed two men in T-shirts and hard hats putting the grenade in bubble wrap.

Police in China's Hubei province said on Monday that they had confiscated a hand grenade kept by a 90-year-old villager for 20 years as a hammer for everyday use.

The Public Security Bureau of Baokang County posted a video of the grenade's retrieval. It said the unnamed female villager discovered it in a field decades ago and, believing it to be a lump of iron, had been using it to crack walnuts, hammer nails, and pound pepper.

The grenade was only discovered on Sunday when an old building belonging to the woman in the town of Huangbao was being demolished, according to the post on Weibo, China's version of X.

It added that police deployed "professional bomb disposal personnel" to her home.

Footage shows two men dressed in T-shirts, long pants, and red hard hats placing the explosive in a bubble wrap sleeve. A uniformed officer assisted them as villagers looked on.

One of the men then appears to secure the ends of the sleeve with Scotch or masking tape.

"Fortunately, this safety hazard has been eliminated and has not caused any harm or injuries," the Baokang Public Security Bureau wrote.

The police announcement went viral on Weibo, with the topic accruing 75 million views in the 24 hours after the video was posted, per data seen by Business Insider.

The Public Security Bureaus of Baokang and Xiangyang, which is the greater city area, did not immediately respond to requests for comment sent by BI.

Some Weibo users took the reported incident as a testament to the quality of the grenade because it hadn't exploded after 20 years.

"It's so obviously a grenade, and no one recognized it. The young didn't recognize it. The old didn't recognize it. Have they never seen war?" one top commenter wrote.

In recent years, China has stepped up efforts to publicly encourage its citizens to be vigilant against potential threats as Chinese leader Xi Jinping tries to harden its populace, economy, and military for the possibility of war.

• Sean Penn, 63, says he's "thrilled every day" to not be in a serious relationship.
• "I don't sense I'll have my heart broken by romance again," Penn told The New York Times.
• A 2022 Pew Research Center survey of 6,034 US adults showed that about 30% of those over the age of 50 are single.

Sean Penn, 63, is embracing not being in a serious relationship.

In an interview with The New York Times, Penn opened up about how his perspective on romance has changed over the years.

"I'm just free," Penn told the Times. "If I'm going to be in a relationship, I'm still going to be free, or I'm not going to be in it, and I'm not going to be hurting. I don't sense I'll have my heart broken by romance again."

The Academy Award-winning actor has been married and divorced thrice.

Penn was married to Madonna from 1985 to 1989.

In 1996, he married actor Robin Wright, with whom he has two children. They divorced in 2010.

In 2020, Penn married Australian actor Leila George. A year later, George filed for divorce, which was finalized in 2022.

He added that he feels "thrilled every day" that he's not currently in a serious relationship.

Looking back on his past relationships, Penn says he's had experiences when "the first thing I see in the morning are eyes wondering what I'm going to do to make them happy that day. Rarely reciprocated."

He also spoke about how draining his relationships sometimes felt.

"On one of my marriages, the background noise of life was a 'Housewives of Beverly Hills' or another thing called 'Love Island,'" he said. "Not even being in the room — I'm not saying this to be cute — I was dying. I felt my heart, my brain shrinking. It was an assault."

Penn added that he's past the stage of liking drama in romance, and if there's any unnecessary drama or visits from "the trauma gods," his feelings for the person will disappear.

"I look at my dogs and say, 'Hey, it's us again,'" he said.

A 2022 Pew Research Center survey of 6,034 US adults showed that about 30% of those over the age of 50 are single. Additionally, among all single adults surveyed, 57% say they are not currently looking for a relationship or casual dates.

Although there is a stigma around being single — especially for older women — research has shown that there are numerous mental and physical benefits to singledom. Bonnie Scott, therapist and founder of Mindful Kindness Counseling, previously told Business Insider that single people can make decisions independently, which leads to more freedom.

A representative for Penn did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours.

• Boeing's Starliner is stuck at the International Space Station — for now.
• The two astronauts on board arrived at the ISS on June 6 and were scheduled to spend eight days in space.
• NASA and Boeing announced on Friday that their return date had been pushed back again.

The return of two astronauts on board Boeing's first crewed commercial spacecraft has been delayed — again.

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams went up to the International Space Station on June 6 after a series of delays that postponed the craft's launch by a month.

The astronauts were originally supposed to stay docked in space for eight to 10 days, per a June 6 statement from Boeing.

But 12 days after the crew arrived at the ISS, Boeing announced that their return to White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico had been delayed to June 26.

On Friday, the aviation company said the return was delayed again to assess issues on board and to make time for two spacewalks. The delay comes after five helium leaks were detected on board the spacecraft. Helium supports the spacecraft's reaction control system (RCS) thrusters, allowing them to fire.

"Mission managers are evaluating future return opportunities following the station's two planned spacewalks on Monday, June 24, and Tuesday, July 2," Boeing said in its statement.

Boeing also has not provided a new scheduled date for the astronauts' return.

"We are taking our time and following our standard mission management team process," Steve Stich, manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, said in the statement.

However, the statement said that the crew was not "not pressed for time to leave the station," as there were "plenty of supplies in orbit."

The voyage to the ISS isn't Wilmore's and Williams' first time in space.

Suni Williams, who was selected to be an astronaut by NASA in 1998, had spent a total of 322 days in space before the Starliner project. And Butch Wilmore, who has been a NASA astronaut since 2000, logged 178 days in space before the Starliner launch.

This is the first instance of Boeing sending up a crewed spacecraft in an attempt to break into the commercial human-space transport business. But the company now lags behind Elon Musk's SpaceX, which has been sending astronauts to space since 2020.

Boeing and SpaceX were the two American companies selected by NASA in 2014 to explore commercial space transport.

Preceding the Starliner's launch, Musk pointedly said on X in May that Boeing was weighed down by "too many non-technical managers."

Back on earth, Boeing has also been plagued by plane issues in recent months. In January, a door plug came off a Boeing 737 Max 9 Alaska Airlines jet at 16,000 feet, resulting in a gaping hole in the plane.

Several Boeing whistleblowers have since come forward with bombshell testimonies alleging that the company cut corners with quality control.

Boeing and NASA didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, made outside normal working hours.

• Oxygen masks deployed on a United flight from San Francisco to Maui last week.
• A passenger said people on the plane were terrified, and he was planning what to do if it went down.
• Another recent United flight, which was also a Boeing 777, had oxygen masks "inadvertently" deployed.

Ryan Scott, a chef based in Marin County, California, was heading to a Hawaii vacation with his family of four when he suddenly found himself in a scene out of a nightmare.

Scott, his wife, and their two young daughters were flying United from San Francisco to Maui on June 18 when, about two and a half hours in, the flight experienced minor turbulence — nothing out of the ordinary, he said — and oxygen masks deployed from the ceiling.

"You could literally stop traffic with just the gasp of air in the plane," Scott told Business Insider, adding, "There was a lot of WTF and dead silence."

Scott said his first thought was that they were not over land and wouldn't be near an airport to make an emergency landing.

"When you are halfway over the Pacific Ocean, the worst goes through your head," he said.

Scott quickly started planning with his wife. "People are going to be very pushy if we go down. Here's the deal," he said to her. He told her to grab their licenses and put them in her pocket, noted where the closest door was and how to grab the seat cushions, and said he'd grab the girls when it was time to go.

He said some passengers quickly started to panic, with at least one person near him hyperventilating.

"People were crying, people were very, very scared," he said.

Scott's wife, Lesley Scott, said the flight attendants urgently asked passengers to put the oxygen masks on, which they thought meant this was not a mistake and that something was actually wrong.

Scott said that his daughters had little headphones on and were on their iPads, so in order to prevent them from freaking out, his wife framed it as a game that they would now watch with the masks on too.

He also said that he took a cue from the flight attendants, who remained seated during the ordeal and were calm and collected, adding that they deserved a lot of credit.

They said about 20 minutes had passed without any updates. Eventually, the pilot came on and said they had descended to a lower altitude but to keep their masks on for now.

Then they got another update that there had apparently been a "sensor malfunction" that caused the masks to fall, Scott said. He said the pilot said there was no need for a mask and that "he was going to climb back up, and then drinks were on United."

"And that's when people were getting double vodka sodas," Scott added.

Scott said after the flight the only communication he received from United were emails asking how their service was.

He said United had "dropped the ball," adding, "People felt like they were going to die, and that's the truth."

In a statement provided to Business Insider, United said: "A small number of oxygen masks inadvertently deployed during the flight. There were no pressurization issues, our pilots followed appropriate procedures in a situation like this, and the aircraft landed safely as scheduled at Kahului Airport. "

The aircraft, a Boeing 777, had more than 360 passengers on board.

About a week prior, oxygen masks also "inadvertently deployed" on a transatlantic United flight from Paris to Washington, DC. The aircraft in that incident was also a Boeing 777.

It's unclear why the masks "inadvertently deployed" in either case.

Boeing did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular hours.

Similarly, in that incident, United said the air pressure in the cabin was normal and the flight landed safely.

Scott said the experience was "like a weird dream" and that he feels blessed his family is safe.

But he added that a lot of people on his flight "were clapping and kissing the ground when we got out, that's for sure."

• An oil tycoon convicted of cheating and instigating forgery is selling his mansion in Singapore for $32 million.
• In land-scarce Singapore, Good Class Bungalows — mansions on private land — are a trophy among the ultrawealthy.
• TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew and billionaire James Dyson are among the elite who own GCBs in Singapore.

A former oil tycoon convicted of cheating and instigating forgery is selling his mansion in Singapore for $43 million Singapore dollars, or $32 million.

Lim Oon Kuin, the founder of the collapsed oil firm Hin Leong Trading, is putting his Good Class Bungalow in Tanglin Hill, one of the city's wealthy enclaves, for sale.

A home on private property is incredibly rare in the land-scarce city — which spans a mere 274 square miles. The largest and most expensive type of landed home available in Singapore is known as a Good Class Bungalow, or GCB.

There are only an estimated 2,800 GCBs in Singapore. According to the Urban Land Authority, a GCB requires a minimum plot size of 15,070 square feet and is found only in designated prime residential areas.

The property is a two-story detached house with five bedrooms, a garden, and a swimming pool, per a press release from Knight Frank Singapore, which is handling the sale.

Lim, 81, was convicted last month of three criminal charges of cheating and forgery, per local paper The Straits Times. His sentencing is scheduled for October 3. Lim's lawyers did not respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

Two charges against Lim involved cheating HSBC, while the third involved instigating one of his Hin Leong employees to forge a document, per The Business Times. The charges involved a total of $111.7 million.

Lim faces another 127 charges, which were stood down and will be dealt with later, per The Straits Times. Prosecutors alleged that 16 banks in Singapore suffered $291.9 million in actual monetary losses out of $2.7 billion in loans that Lim duped them into extending to Hin Leong.

According to Bloomberg, Hin Leong was "one of Asia's biggest suppliers of diesel and shipping fuel" at its peak.

This is the third GCB that Lim has put on the market.

In 2021, he sold one GCB in October 2021 for SG$33.39 million, and another GCB in November 2023 for slightly under SG$26.5 million.

"There has been quite a bit of market buzz about GCBs of late, and for good reason. On top of offering substantial capital appreciation, these prized assets' prime location and access to lifestyle options reinforce their desirability," Mary Sai, Knight Frank's executive director for capital markets, said in the press release.

Some prominent business leaders who have bought GCBs in Singapore in the past include TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew and billionaire James Dyson.

In April, Bloomberg reported that tech billionaire Forrest Li's wife filed an option to buy a GCB for SG$42.5 million.

According to CBRE's luxury residential report, 23 GCB transactions worth SG$777.32 million were recorded in 2023, down from 47 transactions worth SG$1.365 billion in 2022.

• Ruth Ang and Luc Maurice retired early by investing in real estate for passive income.
• Originally from Singapore and Canada, they built their careers in Shanghai before retiring.
• They now manage their finances with mutual funds and split time between Phuket and Canada.

Ruth Ang was 30 when she met her now-partner Luc Maurice on a plane from Phuket to Bangkok.

Ang is originally from Singapore, and Maurice is from Canada, but after about a year of long-distance dating, they decided to start living together in China in their early 30s.

They grew their careers in Shanghai — advertising for Ang and IT consulting for Maurice — but slowly realized they wanted more freedom with their time.

"I had a strong calling that I need my time back," Ang told Business Insider. "In order for me to do that, I must have a cushion or a comfort."

So, for the next decade and a half, the two built their nest egg.

"We live hard and play so hard. So the money has to work just as hard," Ang said about passive income that could help them leave the corporate world early.

Their solution was real estate.

The couple retired in 2016, when Ang was 48, and her partner was 50. Today, they split their time between Phuket and Canada, pursuing a variety of hobbies.

Investing strategy

For Ang, investing looked different at each stage of her life.

In her 20s, she left Singapore to pursue a career in a bigger market. She moved to China, then London, and New York with the idea of "investing" in herself and building a strong résumé.

Having a strong portfolio meant that she was earning six figures in her late 30s and 40s, which gave her and Maurice, who was also making six figures, a solid base to start buying properties without mortgages.

"I never had debts," she said.

She said that they were careful never to buy properties that their salaries could not cover, which could lead to real estate becoming a liability instead of an asset.

The couple bought, renovated, and sold five properties in China and South Africa over a decade. It helped them hit their Financial Independence Retire Early or "FIRE number" — the amount of money that made them feel comfortable to retire.

They quit their jobs in 2016 and moved from Shanghai to Phuket, Thailand.

Seven years into retirement, in 2022, they left their real estate strategy for a new one.

"As we get older, we don't want to go and spend a lot of time fixing up homes," Ang said. "We decided to be even more liquid" and put the money they made from their properties toward mutual funds.

Budget split

Ang and Maurice split their finances in a simple way.

They allocate about 40% of their annual budget to expenses in their home base, Phuket. The rest is spent on travel, to Canada and other destinations.

The couple spends October to March in Phuket, then they head to South Africa or Europe in April, when Thailand heats up. They usually spend June to October in Quebec, Canada.

Ang said that not having children has also made hitting their financial independence goals easier.

Serious hobbies

Nine years into retirement, Ang said that the days still pass by quickly and they don't get bored.

"Truthfully the angst is increasing: Feeling how fast time flies by and we only have achieved that much, traveled that much, explored that much," she said.

This is because both of them pursue hobbies like a "second career."

"A hobby I take up quite intensely is actually literature — both reading and research." She is also considering taking up writing.

Maurice focuses on sports.

"Luc spends a minimum 20 hours a week following an Ironman coaching program in Phuket. They train a full year, slowing down May to July," Ang said. He also participates in competitive ocean swims.

They both enjoy golf, and they've played in southern Spain, South Africa, and the western US.

Their recent non-golf trips include a trip to Turin, Italy and a safari in South Africa. They are spending the summer this year in Quebec.

Are you part of the FIRE community in Asia or Europe? If you've got a story to share, get in touch with this reporter: shubhangigoel@businessinsider.com

• Two federal judges in Kansas and Missouri blocked student-loan forgiveness and cheaper payments through the SAVE plan.
• A range of SAVE provisions set to go into effect July 1 are now halted.
• Borrowers can still remain on the SAVE plan as the legal process continues.  

President Joe Biden's new student-loan repayment plan just got dealt two blows by federal courts.

On Monday, judges in Kansas and Missouri district courts handed down their rulings on two separate lawsuits filed by GOP state attorneys general seeking to block the SAVE income-driven repayment plan, introduced last summer to lower borrowers' monthly payments.

Earlier this year, the Education Department started implementing a SAVE provision ahead of schedule that canceled student debt for borrowers with original balances of $12,000 or less who made as few as 10 years of qualifying payments. The attorneys general argued that relief was unconstitutional, among other things, and requested the relief — and the plan overall — be blocked.

The Missouri court ruled on one of the lawsuits led by Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey that the Education Department can no longer carry out student-loan forgiveness via SAVE as the legal process continues. The ruling still preserves borrowers' abilities to enroll and make payments through the plan.

"These borrowers have already made payments under the program, have already had those payments calculated under the early implementation of certain provisions of the Final Rule, and some borrowers anticipate imminent forgiveness," the ruling stated. "These borrowers and the public have an interest in ensuring consistency in loan repayment programs, and any preliminary injunction would harm their expectations of such consistency."

The Department of Education did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Meanwhile, the Kansas court ruled that it would preserve actions the Education Department has already implemented through the SAVE plan, but it will halt the new provisions set to go into effect on July 1, including cutting payments for undergraduate borrowers in half.

Kansas' ruling will go into effect on June 30.

Both of the rulings are preliminary, and while student-loan forgiveness is blocked for the time being, courts have yet to hand down their final rulings.

Judge Daniel Crabtree, who delivered the Kansas ruling, was previously skeptical of the GOP attorneys general's case and ruled on June 7 that just three of the original eleven states had standing to challenge the plan.

Still, these two rulings are setbacks for borrowers who were hoping to benefit from the SAVE plan that the Education Department has been touting for the past year. While the department continues to carry out separate relief for borrowers through one-time account adjustments, its broader plan for debt cancellation — expected to benefit over 30 million borrowers — is highly likely to encounter legal challenges this fall, as well.

Kansas and Missouri's attorneys general celebrated the rulings. Kansas' Attorney General Kris Kobach wrote on X that "Kansas's victory today is a victory for the entire country. As the court correctly held, whether to forgive billions of dollars of student debt is a major question that only Congress can answer. Biden's administration is attempting to usurp Congress's authority."