Concerns about a potential bubble in the artificial intelligence sector emerged again on Thursday as major U.S. stock markets declined, just a day after chipmaker Nvidia’s impressive results had sparked a market rally.
Initially, Wall Street experienced a boost following Nvidia’s reassurance of robust demand for its advanced data center chips. However, this optimism faded as the tech stocks central to the AI boom began to face downward pressure.
In New York, the S&P 500 index ended the day down 1.6%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 0.8%. The tech-focused Nasdaq Composite Index dropped by 2.2%.
Earlier in the session, the FTSE 100 rose by 0.2% in London, and the DAX closed 0.5% higher in Frankfurt. The Nikkei Stock Average increased by 2.65% in Tokyo.
Currently valued at approximately $4.4 trillion, Nvidia has seen an extraordinary surge in valuations among AI-related companies in recent months. The escalating concerns about a bubble have arisen as businesses invest heavily in chips and data centers to secure their position in the AI market.
Nvidia continues to experience strong demand, with highly anticipated earnings surpassing expectations on Wednesday. Yet, worries persist that companies utilizing these chips and investing in AI are making substantial expenditures to stimulate demand.
“The sale of semiconductors to support AI doesn’t mitigate fears that some hyperscalers might be overspending on AI infrastructure,” remarked Robert Pavlik, senior portfolio manager at Dakota Wealth. “While certain companies are turning a profit, many are still investing heavily.”
Mixed employment data released Thursday morning highlighted robust labor market growth in September, albeit with a slight uptick in the unemployment rate, reinforcing the expectation that Federal Reserve policymakers may choose to maintain interest rates at their upcoming December meeting.
Nvidia’s stock saw a decline of 3.2%, while the VIX index, which gauges market volatility, increased by 8%.
The metropolitan police were required to address the inaccurate claims generated by artificial intelligence on Elon Musk’s X platform. As a result, they released footage from the far-right rally that took place in the city since 2020.
Chatbot Grok claimed to provide answers to users on X about the location and timing of police footage depicting clashes with the crowd.
Despite Grok’s history of providing inaccurate information, it was noted that “the footage appears to show a confrontation between police and protesters over restrictions on September 26, 2020, during an anti-lockdown demonstration at Trafalgar Square in London.”
The response was quickly amplified on X, with Daily Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson tweeting, “This aligns with my suspicions.”
The Met responded to her, clarifying that the footage was captured before 3pm at the junction of Whitehall and Horseguard Avenue.
“It is clearly not Trafalgar Square, as suggested by the AI response you referenced. To eliminate confusion, we provided labeling comparisons to verify the location,” the force added.
This exchange illustrates the challenges police face from social media platforms, occurring on a day when 26 officers sustained injuries amid violence. Elon Musk was present at a rally organized by far-right activists affiliated with Tommy Robinson.
Musk faced criticism for his remarks, which were conveyed to Robinson via live link. The billionaire told the audience, “violence is coming,” asserting, “You will either fight back or perish.”
Liberal Democratic leader Ed Davy stated: “Elon Musk incited violence on our streets yesterday. I hope that politicians from all parties unite in denouncing his deeply dangerous and irresponsible rhetoric.”
When queried by the BBC on Sunday about whether a tech billionaire was trying to provoke violence, Business Secretary Peter Kyle commented:
Grok is a creation of Musk’s AI company Xai and is accessible to users on Musk’s social media platform, X. Users can pose questions on X by tagging “@grok”, prompting the chatbot to respond.
Previously, Grok mentioned South Africa’s “white genocide” in unrelated discussions.
This idea stems from a far-right conspiracy theory, which has gained traction in mainstream discourse, with figures like Musk and Tucker Carlson often referenced.
Musk is a prominent supporter of Robinson and has significantly contributed to reviving the narrative regarding gangs that groomed and assaulted girls in the UK for years. Last year, Downing Street rebuked Musk for his comments on X, where he posted that “civil wars are inevitable” alongside footage of violent riots in Liverpool.
X was contacted for a statement regarding Grok’s misleading information related to Saturday’s footage.
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Elon Musk advocated for the “dissolution of Parliament” and a “change in government” in the UK during a London “Unity” rally organized by far-right activist Stephen Yexley Lennon, commonly known as Tommy Robinson.
Musk, the proprietor of X, connected through video links, as thousands listened to Robinson oppose the “woke mind virus,” asserting, “violence is coming” and cautioned the audience, “you’ll fight back or die.”
He remarked: “I firmly believe there needs to be a change in the UK government. I can’t. There can’t be another four years.”
“We must take action. The Assembly needs to be dissolved, and a new election must occur.”
This isn’t Musk’s first foray into British politics. He previously engaged in a verbal clash with the UK government regarding grooming gangs and criticized the 2023 online safety law, denouncing it as a threat to free speech.
Although he shared a warm rapport with Nigel Farage, rumors swirled that he might lead a donation to Farage’s party before calling for reform within British leadership amid the controversy surrounding Robinson’s support.
Musk addressed the crowd in central London:
Aviation footage shows the scale of the rally “Unifying the Kingdom” – Video
“This is directed at the rational center, those who don’t usually engage in politics but simply seek to live their lives.
“My message aligns with them. If this persists, violence will reach you, leaving you with no choice. You are in a critical situation here.
“Whether you decide to resort to violence or not, it is inevitable. You either resist or perish; that’s the reality.”
With Katie Hopkins and Tommy Robinson at the “Kingdom” rally in central London on Saturday. Photo: Lucy North/Pennsylvania
Musk further asserted, “The left is the murder party,” referencing the death of Charlie Kirk.
He stated: “There is a tremendous amount of violence from the left. My friend Charlie Kirk was murdered in cold blood this week, and those from the left are openly celebrating it. The left embodies a party of murder and revels in killing.”
Additionally, he criticized what he termed the Awakening Mind Virus, asserting that merit should dictate progress, not “discrimination based on gender, religion, race, etc.”
Flares are launched as police attempt to control the crowd at the rally. Photo: Tayfun Sarcı/EPA
He remarked: “Many awakening movements are inherently super racist, super sexist, and often anti-religious. Why is there such unfairness against anti-Christians? It’s unjust… it’s all aspects of awakening, and I’m labeling it; it’s fundamentally contradictory.”
Attendance was estimated to exceed 110,000 individuals at what is regarded as one of the largest nationalist gatherings in decades. Marchers encountered approximately 5,000 anti-racist counter-protesters.
Along with Musk, figures like Katie Hopkins and French far-right politician Eric Zemmour were also present as speakers at the event.
A group of young evangelical Christians is planning a campaign at religious universities to persuade students to think about climate change at the voting booth.
It’s part of a small movement within the evangelical community to combine Christian values with climate action.
The effort comes as President Donald Trump continues to court evangelical voters while calling climate change a “fraud.”
When an evangelical student group calls for a vote on climate change at a Christian university later this month, they plan to carry the tagline: “Love God, Love Your Neighbor, Vote for Climate Change!”
This is the first time the bipartisan group Young Evangelicals for Climate Action has organized such an in-person campaign on campus since its inception in 2012.
The volunteers, members of six Christian university chapters, are working to connect communities affected by the climate crisis with the Christian duty to “love our neighbor” and help those in need. We are aiming for
The effort is part of a larger movement led by the Evangelical Environmental Network, a faith-based organization calling for climate action.
Its members are a minority within the community. A 2022 poll from the Pew Research Center found that evangelical Christians are the largest minority. most likely Religious groups in the United States have expressed skepticism about anthropogenic climate change.
In the 2020 election, 84% of white evangelical Christians I voted for Donald Trump — I have voted for Trump in the past Climate change is a “hoax” decades of contradictions scientific consensus. Just last week, President Trump falsely claimed that “the Earth has actually gotten a little colder lately,” and at a September 29 rally called climate change “one of the biggest frauds in history.”
Cast of white evangelical voters third President Trump's 2016 vote count and Pew Research poll released last month We found that 82% said they would do so again this year.
Still, Jessica Morman, CEO of the Evangelical Environmental Network, says she's working to get Christians to see climate change as an issue that loves God's planet.
“As evangelicals, we have a biblical mission to care for God’s creation,” said Morman, a pastor and climate scientist. “And in the 21st century, that means taking action on the climate.”
I
yeah How does democracy end?In his elegant book, The Restoration of Liberal Democracy, published after Trump’s 2016 election, David Runciman made a startling point: the liberal democracies we take for granted will not last forever, but they will not fail in the ways we’ve seen them in the past: without revolution, military coup, or breakdown of social order. Moving forward through failure In an unexpected way. The implication was that people who compare it to what happened in Germany in the 1930s are mistaken.
Until a few weeks ago, that seemed like wise advice. But then something changed: key sectors of Silicon Valley, a Democratic stronghold for decades, began to support Trump. In 2016, contrarian billionaire and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel was the only prominent Silicon Valley figure to endorse Trump, which merely confirmed the fact that he was a Silicon Valley legal outcast. But in recent weeks, many of Silicon Valley’s bigwigs (Elon Musk, Marc Andreessen, and David Sachs, to name just three) have revealed themselves as Trump supporters and donors. Musk has set up a pro-Republican political action committee (super PAC) and is donating to it. On June 6, venture capitalist Sachs hosted a $300,000-a-person fundraising dinner at Trump’s San Francisco mansion.
Why the sudden interest in politics? It’s probably a combination of several factors. First, Biden’s billionaire tax plan (and his administration’s antitrust litigation enthusiasm). Second, Trump’s newfound enthusiasm for cryptocurrency. Third, Biden has raised far more money for his campaign. And finally, and most importantly, Trump’s momentum was beginning to look unstoppable even before Biden dropped out.
The last two factors are reminiscent of the 1930s. In 1932, the Nazi Party was in serious financial trouble, and when Hitler became chancellor the following year, he personally appealed to business leaders for help. Funds were raised from 17 different business groups, with the largest donation coming from IG Farben and Deutsche Bank
At the time, these donations must have seemed like a shrewd gamble to the businessmen who donated them. But as historian Adam Tooze wrote in his landmark book on the period, it also meant that German businessmen “were willing to cooperate in the destruction of German political pluralism.” In return, according to Tooze, German business owners and managers were given unprecedented powers to control their employees, collective bargaining was abolished, and wages were frozen at relatively low levels. Corporate profits and business investment grew rapidly. Fascism had been good for business, but it wasn’t anymore.
I wonder if these thoughts were going through the minds of the tech titans enjoying a $300,000 dinner in San Francisco that June night. My guess is no, they’re not. Silicon Valley residents don’t care much about history because they’re in the business of creating the future, so there’s nothing to learn from the past.
That’s a pity, because history has some lessons for them. The German businessmen who decided to support Hitler in 1933 may not have known exactly what he was up to for Germany, and probably knew nothing about the plans for the “Final Solution.” But David Sachs’ dinner guests have no such excuse. Project 2025
President Trump’s second term plans are available online in a 900-page document.
It’s an interesting read. It has four core objectives: protecting children and families, dismantling the administrative state, defending borders, and restoring “God-given” individual liberties. But essentially, A huge expansion of presidential powers There are many hysterical proposals, including putting the Department of Justice under Presidential control, replacing nonpartisan civil servants with loyalist ones, rolling back environmental laws, mass deportations, and removing “sexual orientation and gender identity, diversity, equity and inclusion, gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender sensitivity, abortion, reproductive health and reproductive rights” from all federal rules, agency regulations, contracts, grants and laws.
The rationale for Project 2025 was a concern that Trump had no idea how to use his new powers when he came to power in 2016, and that he certainly will not do so next time. As public concern about the document has grown, he has tried to distance himself from it. This may be because he thinks he won’t need a plan if elected. Speaking recently at a Christian convention in Florida, he said: “Go out and vote, this time. You don’t have to vote anymore. Four more years and we’ll take care of it. We’ll all be sorted out. My beautiful Christian people, you don’t have to vote anymore.”
The lesson? Be careful what you wish for. Copycats, Silicon Valley.
“We’re facing a jungle – the noise, the smell, the risk of disease,” stated Penny Reynolds, who resides across the street from the land designated for the Bainbridge facility.
Safer Human Medicine has reassured residents that they take all necessary precautions to ensure that all waste remains on-site and is sent to the city’s wastewater treatment plant, and that most of the noise is contained on-site with no detectable odors.
Greg Westergaard, the CEO of monkey breeder Alpha Genesis, mentioned that establishing a monkey facility entails significant effort.
“It would involve extensive training and infrastructure,” he explained. “There will be unpleasant odors and wastewater from cleaning.”
Residents of Bainbridge point to the backgrounds of several executives at Safer Human Medicine, two of whom previously held leadership roles at companies that were under investigation, as a reason to be skeptical of their efforts.
CEO of Safer Human Medicines, Jim Harkness, is the chief operating officer of Envigo. He recently pleaded guilty. Thousands of dogs were abandoned, leading to a $35 million fine. Former Chief Operating Officer Kurt Derfler has left Charles River Laboratories. The Department of Justice issued a subpoena The probe was part of an inquiry into the potential smuggling of wild monkeys from Cambodia, and Charles River Laboratories stated at the time that any concerns about its involvement were “unwarranted.”
Neither Mr. Harkness nor Mr. Derfler faced individual charges related to those incidents.
Safer Human Medicine declined an interview request. “Envigo was functioning under unprecedented circumstances brought on by the pandemic,” they said in an email. They also stated that “we have been committed to operating responsibly and ethically in this field for decades and will continue to do so.”
Long-tailed macaques, also known as crab-eating macaques, are climbing the pillar in Indonesia in 2023.Chaidir Mahyudin/AFP via Getty Images file
Safer Human Medicine has stated that they do not use wild-caught macaques. Herpes BThe macaques will be sourced from Asia, but the specific location has not been disclosed.
Community activism in Bainbridge has made an impact. What was initially promoted as a “significant investment” is now overseen by Rick McCaskill, executive director of the Bainbridge and Decatur County Development Authority. Approximately $400 million and 260 jobs Things took a turn quickly. Following pushback from the community, Bainbridge leaders decided in February to Withdraw support for the Safer Human Medicine Project.
“The division and fear within the community seemed to outweigh the benefits of the project,” McCaskill remarked.
Monkeys used for research are housed at seven national primate research centers, each with its own breeding colonies, as well as other facilities across the country. While the national primate research centers mostly utilize rhesus macaques, pharmaceutical companies tend to prefer long-tailed macaques, which Safer Human Medicine intends to use.
Animal testing for drug development was formerly mandatory in the United States, but President Joe Biden will lift the ban in 2022. FDA Modernization Act 2.0 Signed into LawAllow non-animal options where possible. Several members of Congress voted this year to The bill was submitted. We advocate for a shift away from animal testing.
“There are various alternatives available today, such as AI, computer models, and organs on chips,” stated Jim Newman, spokesperson for the American Association for Medical Progress, a group that supports animal testing when necessary, “but current options can only reduce the number of animals to a certain extent.”
An artist’s rendering of a monkey enclosure proposed for Bainbridge, Georgia.Safer Human Medicines
Currently, researchers still rely on monkeys for certain tests, and some animal researchers cite a U.S. Shortage of long-tailed macaques — Imports reportedly dropped by over 20% in 2020 due to China halting exports, leading to a surge in prices of long-tailed macaques.
Safer Human Medicine believes that their proposed facility can address the monkey shortage, intending to start with 500 to 1,000 monkeys and then expand. They stated that the facility would be funded by industry and private donors in the US, without specifying them.
The extent of opposition from local residents to the facility remains unclear. Some local politicians who opposed the facility lost recent elections, but it is uncertain if their defeat was linked to their stance.
Nevertheless, Faircloth asserted that her group has no intention of backing down.
“If we don’t stand up for our rights, they will walk all over us,” she declared. “And we can’t allow that to happen.”
More than 4,000 parents have joined a group pledging to ban their young children from smartphones, amid growing concerns about online safety and the impact of social media on mental health.
The WhatsApp group ‘Smartphone Free Childhood’ responds to concerns about children’s smartphone use and the ‘norm’ of giving children smart devices when they attend secondary school, created by former school friends Clare Furnyhoff and Daisy Green. Founded by Well.
“I have children aged 7 and 9. Daisy has children of a similar age and we both feel really scared and anxious and now it’s 11 years old and it’s normal. I didn’t want him to have a smartphone at his age.”
Fernyhoff and Greenwell hope the campaign will encourage parents to delay giving their children smartphones until at least the age of 14 and ban them from accessing social media until the age of 16.
But what they had hoped would be a small group of friends “empowering each other” turned into a nationwide group after the group reached its 1,000-person capacity within 24 hours of Greenwell uploading the message. It turned into a campaign. Instagram post To promote it.
“We were completely surprised by this,” Fernyhough said. “I’ve gone completely crazy.”
The pair encouraged people to form local groups to deal with the demand. “Before our eyes, within 30 minutes, 30 local groups were born across the country, and it continues to grow,” Fernyhoff said.
The group has been transformed into a community to allow more people to participate and currently has approximately 4,500 members.
Smartphones are exposing children to a “world they’re not ready for”, with access to pornography and content about self-harm and suicide, which can have a negative impact on children’s mental health, Furneyhough said. said. “I thought maybe they don’t need it. You don’t need a smartphone at that age. A brick phone can do everything you need.”
Ofcom research shows that 91% of children in the UK own a smartphone by the age of 11, and 44% by the age of 9.
“We thought we had extreme ideas, and that’s why we wanted to be in solidarity with each other, but what we realized was that we were actually pulling the lid on something. I mean, it’s like an open question. I came here by mistake, and people really need to talk about this, and a lot of people feel the same way we do. I feel like I can’t talk,” Fernyhoff said.
Brianna Gee’s mother, Esther Gee, earlier this week called for a complete ban on social media for under-16s, calling for a complete ban on social media access for under-16s, unless tech companies take steps to restrict access to harmful content. , said there would be more people with mental health problems.
Brianna was murdered on February 11, 2023, and her mother believes she was vulnerable after spending so much time online.
The goal is to change this norm, Fernyhow said, so that by the time children graduate from elementary school, the whole class will come together and say, “Let’s all delay this until at least 14 years old.” This means that all children in primary school go on to secondary school where they have a certain number of peers doing the same thing, reducing peer pressure.
“We don’t just want kids to go to middle school,” Fernyhoff said. “It’s a nightmare. No one would do that to their child.” But if 20%, 30%, even 50% of his children enroll because their parents made that decision. , they will be in a much better position.
“They can have the childhood they were meant to have, focus on learning, and enjoy the real world without having to spend their lives scrolling. We all know that’s not good for them. I know.”
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