About a year after OpenAI’s launch of ChatGPT brought the simmering artificial intelligence race to a boil, Google’s highly anticipated AI model, Gemini, has finally joined the competition.

Released yesterday, Gemini is a large language model (LLM) that Google CEO Sundar Pichai and executives at the company’s DeepMind AI division say will revolutionize generative technology for business and daily life.

The tech is a family of three models that Google is slowly looping into its suite of services:

• Gemini Nano, the small fry of the bunch, is mainly for mobile devices. As of yesterday, Google Pixel 8 Pro owners could enlist Gemini Nano to summarize audio recordings or draft automatic message replies.
• Gemini Pro is a midsize offering designed for more complex tasks. Pro now powers Google’s chatbot, Bard, but the AI tech isn’t available to Google Cloud customers until Dec. 13.
• Gemini Ultra, the powerhouse version geared toward data centers and large companies, will launch next year and underpin “Bard Advanced,” a new chatbot that will be able to simultaneously process text, images, audio, and video, according to Google’s prerecorded demonstrations.

If Gemini can do what Google promises, it could chip away at OpenAI’s lead in the LLM space.

Gemini vs. GPT

Google claims that Gemini Pro outperforms OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 and that Gemini Ultra dunks on GPT-4 in most tests of its capabilities, including in reasoning, math, and coding. But Gemini’s reported performance on those industry benchmarks is only narrowly better than GPT-4’s, The Verge notes.

Google’s real edge over OpenAI could come if Gemini Ultra is truly multifaceted enough to create original writing and images, come up with arts and crafts projects based on a photo of materials, pick a music genre to match a picture, and explain errors in handwritten equations—all in one product. OpenAI’s generative tools for images and audio—GPT-4’s Vision add-on, DALL-E, and Whisper—are all separate.—ML

What’s 1x2mm and can help address an estimated $100b in medical markets worldwide?

Meet Autonomix’s first-in-class nerve-sensing technology. It’s no bigger than the head of a pin and can unmask disorders like hypertension, pain, and heart problems at their source in the nervous system.

The company already has 100+ patents issued and pending on the technology. And while other companies have delivered similar capability in suitcase-sized hardware, Autonomix has achieved up to 3000x more sensitive detection in a smaller package.

But it gets even better. The company is planning to list on the Nasdaq, so this could be the final opportunity to invest at this private share price.

See how you can become an Autonomix shareholder today.

College presidents face backlash for dodging campus antisemitism questions. Prominent alumni, business leaders, and politicians spoke out against the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and Penn for not giving straight answers in response to questions at a congressional hearing Tuesday about whether they would discipline students if they called for the genocide of Jews. Billionaire investor Bill Ackman, who has sharply criticized student behavior related to the Israel–Hamas war, said all three should “resign in disgrace.” And Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla called it “one of the most despicable moments in the history of US academia.”

Congress won’t have Kevin McCarthy to kick around next year. The California Republican announced yesterday that he plans to leave Congress at the end of 2023 after 17 years representing his district. It’s been a rough year for McCarthy. He was ousted as House speaker in October by his right-wing colleagues for working with Democrats to keep the government open only nine months after securing the job through 15 rounds of voting. Several other lawmakers choosing to retire have pointed to the drama around McCarthy’s speakership as a reason. McCarthy didn’t reveal his post-Congress plans, but said he would “serve America in new ways” (we’re hoping he means Cameo).

Legendary sitcom producer and screenwriter Norman Lear dies at 101. Lear, whose TV shows dominated the airwaves in the 1970s, changed the face of television by writing and developing comedy hits that engaged with serious social issues, such as All in the Family, The Jeffersons, and Maude. In his 2014 memoir, Lear said: “The audiences themselves taught me that you can get some wonderful laughs on the surface with funny performers and good jokes. But if you want them laughing from the belly, you stand a better chance if you can get them caring first.” He was also active in film and liberal politics.

Venezuela is claiming two-thirds of neighboring country Guyana as its own following a recent referendum vote on a land dispute that dates back to the 19th century. While the contested border region of Essequibo is mostly jungle, the oil off its coast is likely what spurred Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to include it in a new map of the country he presented this week. Guyana recently opened bidding to oil multinationals looking to help it boost drilling.

Guyana’s petrodollar bonanza

The low-income nation of 800,000 received a petroleum-fueled economic turbocharge from the massive offshore oil reserves that were found in its territorial waters in 2015.

• Energy giants Exxon Mobil and Hess are developing the oil fields through a profit-sharing agreement with Guyana’s government.
• Guyana rode the oil wave to become the world’s fastest growing economy. Its GDP increased 62.3% in 2022, and the IMF projects it to expand another 38.4% this year.

Maduro proposed a law that would put Essequibo’s oil under the jurisdiction of a Venezuelan state company and give foreign operators three months to cease their activities. But unless he’s prepared to use force, it seems like Maduro’s moves may just be symbolic.

“You have nothing to worry about,” Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali tried to assure international investors. The country has put its military on alert and asked for support from the UN Security Council, as well as regional powers like the US and Brazil.—SK

In a twist about as surprising as another box of rock-hard gingerbread cookies mysteriously appearing in the breakroom, Time magazine picked Taylor Swift as its 2023 Person of the Year.

The editors weren’t just trying to adulate the pop star so they could snag a limited edition Eras Tour popcorn bucket. Swift’s contributions to 2023 were pretty monumental. The Fed even gave her a shoutout for boosting the US economy this summer through massive spikes in hotel bookings surrounding her concert dates.

• The Eras Tour is expected to become the first concert tour ever to gross over a billion dollars (and Swift herself became a billionaire this year).
• The theatrical release of the of the concert movie helped AMC smash its previous record for ticket sales revenue in a single day: Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour surpassed $26 million in advance ticket sales in less than 24 hours.
• And she doesn’t even have to sing: Swift showing up to the September 24 Chiefs vs. Bears game to support her new boyfriend, Travis Kelce, gave the NFL’s Sunday Night Football viewership an 8% boost.

Big picture: A dinner party with Swift and other recent recipients of the award would be a wild ride. Last year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky won, and in 2021, it was Elon Musk.—MM

Stat: Students at Yale probably aren’t impressed with your 4.0, and not just because it takes high marks to become a Bulldog: Almost 80% of undergraduate grades given at the Ivy League school last year were A’s or A-minuses, an economics professor found. That reflects not just grade inflation over time (only 67% of Yalies made A’s in 2010–11) but also a sharp spike in grades during the pandemic. The school’s current 3.7 mean GPA doesn’t have everyone saying “Boola Boola,” as many students and alums have begun to question whether top grades have value when they’re so widespread.

Quote: “If I was the government, I’d close it down.”

JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon and Sen. Elizabeth Warren don’t see eye to eye on much, so it was a surprise that they found something to agree on when bank CEOs came to Congress for a hearing on the industry yesterday: hating on crypto. Dimon, who has expressed his skepticism toward crypto before, said the only “true use case” for the digital currency is for criminals, and the government should get rid of it. Warren noted, “When it comes to banking policy, I am not usually holding hands with the CEOs of multibillion-dollar banks, but this is a matter of national security.”

Read: Inside the secretive world of potato chip flavors. (The Guardian)

Fry: Recipes for your Hanukkah celebration.

Don’t mess with the mail: These are the lengths the government will go to in order to catch postal thieves.

Trust the process: How to tell whether food is ultraprocessed.

Party in the back: Behold the styles from Australia’s famous Mulletfest.

Get longer-looking lashes: Stand out at every holiday gathering. Get the mascara with 25,000 five-star reviews that makes lashes look as long as extensions. Today only, get a special gift on orders over $60.*

^{*A message from our sponsor.}