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New cars lose value the moment you drive them off the lot, but owners of Tesla's sci-fi-esque Cybertruck will have to wait an entire year to learn exactly how much. That's due to an apparently legally binding clause in the vehicle's buyer's agreement that dictates owners "will not sell or otherwise attempt to sell the Vehicle within the first year following your Vehicle's delivery date." If you're going to spend $50,000 on a truck that looks this, ahem, unique, you're probably not the type who suffers buyer's remorse anyhow. | | | • | | A trip down the AI money pit. | | | | • | | Exxon wants in on the future. | | | | • | | UK looks to tax polluting imports. | | | Please do not delete this text. | | Please do not delete this text. | | AI Bots Struggle to Transition from Novelty to Money-Maker | | | Go ask ChatGPT yourself: Does buzz pay the bills? | | | In an interview with the Financial Times on Monday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman discussed his plans to attract further investment for the company behind ChatGPT, which is not yet profitable. Altman said he wants enough funding to achieve artificial general intelligence (AGI), i.e., an artificial intelligence that rivals human cognition. Altman thinks big and spends big. But when it comes to a product that makes money, the whole AI thing can feel a little Metaverse-y… | | | Intelligence Don't Come Cheap | | | The Wall Street Journal reported last month that almost a year after ChatGPT broke onto the scene, companies including OpenAI are struggling to monetize generative AI, as the computing power it takes to run these chatbots outweighs the business models set up to recoup that cost. | | | Altman still seems very focused on the research side of AI. He told the FT that he hopes OpenAI's biggest investor, Microsoft, continues to pump money into the company. "There's a long way to go, and a lot of compute to build out between here and AGI[...] training expenses are just huge," said Altman. Putting aside the fact that AGI may be a pipe dream, there are expenses beyond research that OpenAI will have to swallow: | | | • | | OpenAI is trying to poach researchers working at Google with compensation packages worth up to $10 million, according to a report in The Information. That's assuming the company is successful in achieving a valuation of $86 billion in a share sale, as reported by Bloomberg last month. | | | • | | OpenAI has also joined Adobe and Getty in offering to front the legal costs of any copyright lawsuits that users might incur while using its software — although it may be hedging its bets a tiny bit, as Bloomberg's Brad Stone found only certain enterprise users would be eligible for OpenAI's legal shield. | | | Bard Up for Cash: On the other side of the legal coin, Google is trying to defend the reputation of its ChatGPT rival Bard in court. The company announced it's filed a lawsuit in California saying a group it believes to be headquartered in Vietnam has been placing Bard ads on social media pretending to be Google. Unfortunately, when people click on the ads and go to download the fake Bard, they end up with a bunch of malware instead. If that's the worst thing done to us in the name of AI this week, we'd call it a good week. | | Please do not delete this text. | | Please do not delete this text. | | Exxon Plans Expansion Into Lithium Production | | | (Photo by Justin on Unsplash) | | | Even if the world may (one day, eventually) move on from gas-guzzling, internal-combustion engine cars, Exxon wants to make sure the world doesn't move on from Exxon. | | | On Monday, the fossil fuel giant announced plans to enter the lithium production game in 2027, effectively elbowing its way into the electric vehicle supply chain — as well as the hypothetical future of both cars and energy. | | | Like much of the oil and gas industry, Exxon saw bumper profits in the past year as shifting post-pandemic consumption habits and the outbreak of war in Ukraine priced fossil fuels at a premium. And like most other oil and gas giants, it's used that money to reinvest and grow even bigger. Most notably, the company last month announced a $60 billion acquisition of Pioneer Natural Resources, a textbook maneuver of horizontal integration that marked the industry's biggest deal in decades. | | | But if the acquisition of Pioneer represented a double-down bet on oil's present, Exxon's plans to burst into the lithium space represents a hedge against oil's future. Unlike rivals Shell and BP, Exxon has largely resisted investments in renewable energies like wind and solar. But with lithium, it sees some considerable overlap with its existing expertise: | | | • | | Exxon's lithium production — set to occur on some 120,000 acres of Arkansas land it recently acquired — will use a technique called "direct lithium extraction" (DLE), which entails drilling deep into underground saltwater reservoirs and pumping out the brine within, then using a chemical process to separate the lithium. | | | • | | In other words, more drilling, pumping and processing. "That's obviously directly in our wheelhouse and capability skillset," Dan Amman, head of Exxon's "low carbon" planning, told the Financial Times on Monday. | | | Revving Up: According to a recent Goldman Sachs note, DLE could revolutionize the lithium supply chain, reducing a weeks-to-months-long process to just a matter of days, if not hours. Meanwhile, demand for the chemical element could increase 40-fold by 2040, according to the International Energy Agency. Exxon says it hopes to produce enough lithium by 2030 to build 1 million EVs a year. Lithium production is also widely perceived as having much better business returns than wind or solar energy investments. In this case, at least, it might finally be easy for Exxon to be green. Or green-er. | | Please do not delete this text. | | Please do not delete this text. | | Welcome To The World Of Whiskey Investing | | | You're a Daily Upside reader, which means you've almost certainly heard of savvy investors who are diversifying their portfolios with alternative assets like fine wine and art. | | | But now, there's a new top-performing investment in town that most people aren't privy to yet: | | | That's right – rare whiskey returned 314% from 2013-2023 thanks to a unique combination of factors including booming demand, a charred oak barrel shortage, and sourcing from contract distilleries. | | | They're hosting a webinar with their Head Of Whiskey, Hunter Robillard, to break down everything whiskey-investing-related – including history, insights, value as an asset, and how to get started. | | Please do not delete this text. | | Please do not delete this text. | | UK Follows EU's Lead With Its Own Carbon-Tax Plan | | | The UK will steal a page from the European Union playbook to stay competitive — and try to reach its climate goals. | | | The nation plans to press ahead with a carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) — levies on imported goods from countries with weaker climate regulations — the Financial Times reported. | | | UK companies that emit greenhouse gasses — think those that deal in steel, energy, cement, and power supplies — pay for the privilege. But those same taxes don't apply to imports from countries with minimal climate regulation and that are made using highly polluting processes. Those products can often sell at lower prices in the UK and take market share from homegrown businesses: | | | • | | The FT reported that UK Chancellor Jeremy Hunt could introduce plans for a CBAM this month. The idea is favored by UK industries, with Gareth Stace of the trade body UK Steel telling the FT: "As the UK steel industry is transitioning to green steel production, it is essential that it is not continually outcompeted by high-emission, imported steel." | | | • | | The EU has its own CBAM going into full effect by 2026, in what European Parliament member Peter Liese called "the biggest climate law ever in Europe, and some say in the world." Now, the UK is doing the same to avoid becoming a dumping ground for cheaper, less environmentally friendly products. | | | I'm Gonna Play Both Sides: UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called the idea of the CBAM "reasonable and sensible," but he's also been on a bit of a green U-turn lately. In September, he confirmed the UK would push back the deadline for sales of new gas-and-diesel-powered vehicles, and the UK also gave the go-ahead for new oil drilling in the North Sea. Sunak is entertaining the idea of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, but he's also trying to appeal to his idea of the average British voter. Which would follow if polls haven't consistently shown broad public and Conservative-voter support for net-zero climate targets. | | Please do not delete this text. | | Please do not delete this text. | | • | | Lesson learned: Staff at the National Education Association teachers' union, the largest US union, vote to authorize strike. | | Please do not delete this text. | | | | | | No longer want to receive these emails? Unsubscribe here. | Copyright © 2023 The Daily Upside, LLC., All rights reserved.
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