US regulators have requested final takeover offers for First Republic from JPMorgan Chase and PNC by Sunday. This move comes in an effort to reduce uncertainty for regional lenders by calming the markets. Bank of America has opted out of making a bid after participating in earlier discussions. If regulators receive an acceptable offer by Sunday, a new owner for First Republic could be announced soon. This would create the least disruption for First Republic customers, who would be reassured to know their bank was now owned by a financially-stable operator. The First Republic auction has been seen as a means to end a tumultuous period for midsized US banks, following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in March. First Republic is a California-based specialty lender catering to wealthy Americans, but its business model faltered in the wake of customer withdrawals totaling over $100 billion.
Monthly Archives: April 2023
Maya Calendar Mystery Solved? Scientists Say They’ve Cracked Its Ancient Code – SpaceChatter
Among the most intriguing mysteries of our time is the 819-day calendar used by the ancient Maya civilization. For years, researchers have been trying to decode the intricate system of cycles and astronomical events that the Maya used to keep track of time. Now, a breakthrough discovery has shed new light on this ancient civilization and its sophisticated understanding of the cosmos.
Scientists from around the world have taken on the challenge of cracking the code of the Maya calendar, working tirelessly to unravel its secrets. Their efforts have finally borne fruit, as researchers have unveiled the secret to the 819-day calendar, a system that was central to the Maya’s complex astronomical and mathematical concepts.
The significance of this discovery cannot be overstated. Decoding the Maya calendar is a major breakthrough in our understanding of ancient culture, shedding light on a civilization that flourished over a thousand years ago. This breakthrough also has important implications for archaeology and history, as it opens up new avenues for research and exploration.
Renowned entrepreneur Elon Musk recently appeared on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher to discuss his recent experiences as head of Twitter. During the interview, Musk and Maher expressed concern about the impact of the “woke mind virus” on younger generations. Both men worry that this imaginary phenomenon is ruining society as we know it. While Maher introduced Musk as a “genius” and praised his role in making the electric car a reality, the two also debated the need for interplanetary travel and extensive procreation. Maher disagreed with Musk’s belief in these ideas, citing Earth’s scarce resources and the millions of people who lack access to basic necessities like food and water. Musk countered that desalination is a cheap and viable solution to the water crisis, but Maher remained skeptical. The interview was a candid and insightful conversation between two influential figures.
First Republic Bank Reports $100B in Deposits Pulled During Crisis as Large Banks Step in to Save the Day
Depositors at First Republic Bank pulled more than $100 billion in deposits out of the bank during last month’s crisis, according to the bank’s first quarter results. Fears swirled that it could be the third bank to fail in the wake of the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. However, a group of large banks stepped in to save the day by depositing $30 billion in uninsured deposits in First Republic. The bank’s profits fell 33% from a year earlier and revenues were down 13%, signaling the impact of the crisis. Nevertheless, with the help of other large banks, First Republic was able to prevent further damage and look to the future of the banking industry in the midst of uncertain times.
Enhancing ChatGPT Performance Effective Prompt Engineering Techniques
Many users struggle to use ChatGPT effectively due to poor prompts. To improve results, employ prompt engineering techniques such as few-shot standard prompts, role prompting, adding personality, and chain of thought prompting.
- Introduction: The Challenge of Using ChatGPT Effectively Due to Poor Prompts
- Boosting ChatGPT Performance: The Power of Prompt Engineering Techniques
- Few-Shot Standard Prompts: A Guide for Guiding ChatGPT
- Role Prompting: How to Instruct ChatGPT to Assume Specific Roles
- Enhancing ChatGPT Performance with Personality and Chain of Thought Prompts
Few-shot standard prompts involve providing examples of the desired task, helping guide the model to the correct output. Including random labels from the label space can also help improve results. Role prompting instructs the model to assume a specific role, such as a hiring manager or language tutor. Start prompts with “Act as a…” and provide sufficient detail for the model to adopt the desired role. Adding personality to prompts involves incorporating style and descriptors to adjust the tone and formality of the output. This can result in a more engaging and unique text. Chain of thought prompting encourages the model to provide intermediate reasoning steps before giving the final answer. This can lead to more accurate results, especially for arithmetic, commonsense, and symbolic reasoning tasks.
Elon Musk has announced his intention to create a chatbot called TruthGPT, which he describes as a “maximum truth-seeking AI”. Musk plans to counter the offerings from OpenAI and Google, and to create an AI that is more focused on “understanding the universe” than on manipulating public opinion or causing “civilizational destruction”. Musk has previously been critical of OpenAI, accusing them of training AI models to be politically correct and becoming “closed sourced”. He has also expressed concerns about the power of AI and the potential dangers it poses to humanity. While it’s not clear what Musk’s exact plans are for TruthGPT, he has recruited former DeepMind employee Igor Babuschkin to work on the project. As TechCrunch notes, Musk doesn’t need to create a cutting-edge product to make an impact, as he has billions of dollars at his disposal. It is also worth noting that TruthGPT may be a temporary project name, as OpenAI has applied for a trademark for the term “GPT”.
The world of AI is fast-moving and constantly evolving, with new developments and technologies emerging every day. This week saw multiple stories that caught the attention of industry experts and observers alike. One such story involved ChatBots multiplying at an alarming rate, with new models and iterations being released regularly. However, not all of these models are equal in accuracy or reliability, as evidenced by the recent report on ChatGPT’s inaccuracies in Chinese dialects compared to English. Another example of the technical flaws that are still present in generative AI can be seen in Hugging Face’s conversational AI, HuggingChat, which has been found to give inconsistent and even bizarre answers to basic questions. Despite these challenges, there are renewed efforts to improve text-generating AI, such as Nvidia’s NeMo Guardrails, which aims to make AI safer and more reliable through open-source code and documentation. As the quest for maximum truth-seeking in AI continues, it is important to remain vigilant and aware of the limitations and biases that still exist in these systems.
According to a recent study conducted by Florida Atlantic University, the housing market in some parts of the United States remains overpriced, with buyers paying much more than homes are actually worth. The study compared the historical trends of expected home values to the average list prices across the 100 largest metro areas, identifying the cities with the largest percentage differences between the two. Surprisingly, five of the ten most overpriced housing markets in the country are located in Florida, with Atlanta, Georgia taking the number one spot. In this article, we’ll take a closer look at the gap between expected home values and actual prices across these ten markets and explore whether the housing market is starting to cool down.
“Internet for All,” as the Biden administration put it, will soon be a reality if America keeps its priorities straight. During his State of the Union address, President Joe Biden set a high bar, “We’re going to buy American,” as the U.S. spends billions of dollars on new broadband connections. This is a smart strategy to create American jobs and boost the U.S. economy, but our leaders must not sacrifice speed in the race to close the digital divide in cases where “Buy American” isn’t yet a realistic option.
Under the $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program, for example, every participating state — as well as Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia — will receive a minimum of $100 million for internet infrastructure, with more to be doled out based on each state’s proportional number of unserved locations. Cartesian estimates that fiber providers will contribute another $22 billion in funds for $64 billion in total, which is “sufficient to achieve the program’s availability goal” of making broadband service “available to all eligible locations.” That’s a first.
The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), signed into law by President Biden on November 15, 2021, also included $14.2 billion for the Affordable Connectivity Program, which has helped over 17 million American families pay for a home broadband connection that they otherwise would struggle to afford. What’s more, the bill set aside $2.75 billion for Digital Equity programs; $2 billion for the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program; $2 billion for the Rural Utilities Service Distance Learning, Telemedicine and Broadband Program; and $1 billion for a new Middle Mile grant program. This truly is broadband’s moment in the sun.
The Phaethon asteroid has been a source of intrigue for astronomers for its unusual characteristics and mysterious sodium gas tail. Recent NASA research has revealed that the asteroid is even weirder than previously thought, as it acts like a comet and its tail is made of sodium gas instead of dust. This discovery has led scientists to question whether other so-called “comets” may actually be rocky asteroids heated by the sun. Phaethon is also the source of the annual Geminid meteor shower, and experts are now trying to understand how its sodium gas tail provides material for the shower each December. An upcoming Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency mission is expected to shed more light on Phaethon’s secrets. Despite its potential hazards, NASA’s continued study of Phaethon is proving to be a fascinating avenue of research for astronomers.