Apple CEO Tim Cook is a savvy executive who has successfully navigated several presidential ... [+] administrations. Will his commitment to U.S. manufacturing keep Apple from running afoul of new tariffs? (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)Getty ImagesApple made a big splash today with an announcement that it will invest $500 billion in the United States to support American innovation, advanced manufacturing and high tech job creation over the next four years. This is a nice gesture but I have plenty of questions about the specifics.To be fair, I have no doubt that Apple, whose annual revenues have been near $400 billion for the past few years, will indeed spend a lot of money domestically through 2028. But all of this needs to be put into context in terms of current trade politics, and in terms of similar mega-commitments Apple has previously made.What Does The $500 Billion Actually Entail?Apples investment is in line with other recent announcements about (global) infrastructure spending from its fellow tech titans. As a refresher, Amazon has said it will spend $100 billion this year on capital expenditures supporting AI; the corresponding 2025 projections from Microsoft ($80 billion), Alphabet ($75 billion) and Meta ($60 to $65 billion) are likewise huge. Note, though, that all of those figures are subject to at least some degree of verification when those companies make their SEC filings for 2025.The $500 billion total from Apple also matches the amount pledged by SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle and others for the ambitious Stargate AI project that my colleagues Matt Kimball and Paul Smith-Goodson covered a few weeks ago. But the Stargate entity isnt a publicly traded company, so those figures will probably be hard to verify, and I am skeptical we will actually see that level of investment.Many questions remain about the math behind Apples big commitment, too, not least because there probably wont be any single line item in an SEC filing or shareholder annual report that we can point to if we want to examine the companys follow-through on the pledge later. This is in part because Apple tends to split its AI investments across CapEx and OpEx (using resources from the big cloud service providers), and in part because some of what it discussed in todays release relates to what the company plans to achieve indirectly through its suppliers and partners.Specific Questions About Apples $500 Billion PledgeI started down the path of this analysis with a few questions in a tweet, but the more I thought through it, the more questions I had. Below, Ive broken these down by category to make them more digestible. Note that Ive contacted Apple with a number of these questions, but have not received answers to them so far.Accounting For The $500 BillionHow much incremental new spending does the $500 billion represent? For context, not long after Bidens presidency began in 2021 notice the timing Apple committed $430 billion in U.S. spending across five years, so 2025 is presumably included in both pledges. That makes the math fuzzier. We should not forget, either, that inflation since April 2021 has totaled 18.8%, so that annualized number is a lot lower than it looks, especially with the 2025 overlap.How much of the $430 billion pledge announced in 2021 was actually spent? It would be great to see a breakdown of that spending, but as far as I know there isnt one available for public consumption. The same applies to Apples January 2018 pledge to invest $350 billion in the U.S. spread across five years . . . I think you see the trend.Hiring And Payroll QuestionsHow many new jobs will todays pledge create? Apples announcement said that the company will hire around 20,000 people in the next four years. But at the close of its most recent fiscal year in September 2024, Apple employed 164,000 FTEs worldwide. So bringing on 5,000 people per year for the next four years to hit that 20,000 number would imply hiring a whopping 3% new employees per year and its not even clear if all of those would be net-new hires.Seriously, just 20,000 new hires? To correspond with a $500 billion outlay? I get it that Apple always does lots of work through its suppliers and other ecosystem partners, so not all of the money will translate directly into new headcount at Apple. But a 20,000-person increase doesnt seem that high for a half-trillion-dollar investment. Also, both the 2018 and 2021 pledges from Apple came with U.S. hiring commitments, in each case for 20,000 workers. So I think we can be forgiven for wondering whether this is just a pro forma number that sounds good to Apple. To put this in context, the BLS says that there are 164.9 million workers in the U.S. today. Apples commitment, if it were all enacted this minute, would raise that jobs number by .012%.What part of the $500 billion is wages, including indirect wages? This is the last payroll question, I promise. Apples announcement today talked up the 2.9 million jobs currently supported by Apple in the U.S., which includes personnel at Apples suppliers and even developers for independently produced iOS apps. So are the projected wages of those existing 2.9 million U.S. workers across the Apple ecosystem counted as part of the $500 billion?Manufacturing PlansHow big a deal is this new server assembly plant? Apple said that in 2026 it will begin producing servers at a 250,000-square-foot facility in Houston. This will replace some amount of offshore manufacturing for these servers, which will support Apples Private Cloud Compute initiative and Apple Intelligence. As a longtime Texan who once worked for Compaq in Houston, its good to know that this facility will bring thousands of new jobs to the city, and that Apple expects to expand its datacenter capacity in several other states, too. But during Compaqs heyday, the company had about 6.5 million square feet of manufacturing, labs and office space in Houston. With that in mind, 250,000 square feet of final assembly space strikes me as a midrange build-out. Big factories are in the millions of square feet. For a more immediate comparison, the initial phase of the Stargate project aims to create at least 10 and possibly up to 20 AI datacenters of 500,000 square feet each. So it would be nice to see more than this from Apple.Was the Apple Manufacturing Academy in Detroit bolted on to make the press release look better? Dont get me wrong, the Academy seems like a good initiative to help SMBs implement AI and smart manufacturing, plus a no-cost skills development curriculum for workers. But it feels to me like folks at Apple may have said, We dont have enough in here we should add this. Re-skilling is very important for the success of American manufacturing workers, but I would have preferred to see hard figures for the overall and incremental spend on the entire Academy initiative in every city. That would be impressive.Geopolitical And Trade AspectsHow much of the $500 billion is earmarked for TSMC? In its announcement, Apple touted the doubling of its U.S. Advanced Manufacturing Fund from $5 billion to $10 billion. A chunk of that money is committed for the production of chips at TSMCs Fab 21 in Arizona, of which Apple is the largest customer. Im a veteran of the semiconductor industry, and I genuinely appreciate that Apple is putting its money where its mouth is for promoting advanced manufacturing and skills development throughout the country. But also: Can any of its investment especially for the transistor IP that TSMC develops in Taiwan, not the U.S. be leveraged in TSMCs Taiwan operations? More broadly, what exactly does Apples TSMC commitment pay for? A really gutsy move would have been a capital investment in Intels Columbus firm to manufacture Apples big die silicon that goes into MacBook Pros, or even these new AI servers in the future. Intels 18A node might not be appropriate yet, but 18A-P could be.Is this announcement timed with the desire to potentially reduce tariffs the new administration has announced but not implemented for China and Taiwan? President Trump met with Apple CEO Tim Cook last Thursday and had nice things to say about the Apple investment. Trump seems intent on using tariffs as a significant bargaining chip, as hes already done with the governments of Canada and Mexico. If I were the CEO of a major U.S. tech company with critical supply lines in China and Taiwan, I would certainly take Trump seriously about tariffs and work to be on the right side of any case-by-case decisions about tariff waivers coming from the administration.Sorting The Hype From The RealityIf I sound cynical about what Apple announced today, its just that I have long experience with these kinds of showpiece initiatives many of which never live up to their hype. So its great that Apple is making another even bigger pledge on top of the $350 billion and $430 billion commitments it made in previous years . . . but weve also never seen any accounting that details what actually happened for those pledges.This isnt specific to Apple, because we could say the same thing for the Stargate project or other investment initiatives for which the numbers are big and impressive in the P.R. stage and then (usually) unavailable for public review in the retrospective stage. So while the commitment to domestic U.S. manufacturing (and up-skilling employees and so on) sounds great, in an important sense this sort of announcement is always going to be a P.R. exercise.In Apples case, thats especially relevant given that the company will most definitely continue to do most of its manufacturing overseas, regardless of the commitments it announced today. In that context, Ill note that Tim Cook is a savvy executive who has successfully navigated several presidential administrations, and I cant help but think that Apple is making this announcement to help it get ahead of potential China and Taiwan tariffs.In fact, during Trumps first term China itself committed to fix its trade imbalance with the U.S.; while that commitment was never fulfilled, Trump lowered tariffs on China based on the promise. I have no inside knowledge about this, but Apple could be running a similar play: Make a nice commitment to U.S.-based manufacturing maybe including projects you were planning to do anyway to forestall any tariff trouble, knowing that you might never be required to actually fulfill the promise. Now, pulling that off would be Apple intelligence. Well see if the new administration buys it.

A couple of years ago, Grimes thought art might be dying. She worried that TikTok was overwhelming attention spans; that transgressive artists were becoming more sanitized; that gimmicky NFTs like the Bored Ape Yacht Clubdigital cartoon monkeys which were selling for millions of dollarswere warping value systems.I just went through this whole big art isn't worth anything internal existential crisis, the Canadian singer-songwriter says. But I've come out the other end thinking, actually, maybe it's the main thing that matters. In the last year, I feel like things became way more about artists again.The rise of AI, Grimes believes, has played a role in that shift, perhaps paradoxically. Earlier this month, Grimes was honored at the TIME100 AI Impact Awards in Dubai for her role in shaping the present and future of the technology. While many other artists are terrified of AI and its potential to replace them, Grimes has embraced the technology, even releasing an AI tool allowing people to sing through her voice.Grimes penchant for seriously engaging with what others fear or distrust makes her one of pop cultures most singularand at times divisivefigures. But Grimes wears her contrarianism as a badge of honor, and doesnt hesitate to offer insights and perspectives on a variety of issues. I'm so canceled that I basically have nothing left to lose, she says.She argues that hyper-partisan hysteria has consumed social media, and wishes people would have more measured, nuanced conversations, even with people that they disagree with. A lot of people think I'm one way or the other, but my whole vibe is just like, I just want people to think well, she says. I want people to consider both sides of the argument completely and fully.Across a 45-minute Zoom call on Feb. 14, Grimes explored both sides of many arguments. She talked about both the transformative powers of AI art and its potential to supplant the work of professional musicians. She expressed fears about both propagating a false AI arms race narrative, and the dangers of potentially losing that race to China. She implored tech leaders to build with guardrails before harms emerge, but stops short of calling for regulation.As Grimes offered lengthy commentary about AI, politics, art, and religion, touching on topics including social media, K-pop, and raising her three children, who she shares with tech magnate Elon Musk, who has been leading President Donald Trumps Department of Government Efficiency, while refraining from comment on certain issuesand remaining coy about the album shes currently working on. She did, however, express the desire to release music in the next month or two for her fanbase. They always chill out when there's music, she says, I just need to give them some art.This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.TIME: You were recently honored at the TIME100 AI Impact Awards. How have you been thinking about your potential impact on the world and what you want it to be?Grimes: My impact on the world? I would like to have as minimal as possible, because it seems like all the impact I've had already, it occasionally goes very wrong.If that is not the case, then I don't know. I'd like to save it, I suppose.Do you compartmentalize your impact on music versus tech versus anything else, or is it all within a larger approach?I used to compartmentalize them, but they're actually maybe all the same thing. I just went through this whole big, art isn't worth anything internal existential crisis. And I've come out the other end thinking actually, maybe it's the main thing that matters. So I don't know. Perhaps theyre related.But I think tech has a pretty big impact, and it's going to define everything that happens for the next, possibly, forever.What caused that existential crisis?I think a number of things. As I've been sort of psychoanalyzing the culture for the last little while, when there's not enough beautiful things, or when people don't feel like they can make transgressive things I think as of late, it's gotten a bit better. I don't know if it was something with the TikTok algorithm, where people just got really overwhelmed with being force-fed content. But last year, I feel like things became way more about artists again. And in general, I think it really helped music.And I think also after the initial Midjourney bubble, I feel like Im seeing a bit of a renaissance in visual art as well. Also, maybe just things got way more messed up. In general, hard times make good art.What AI tools are part of your daily or weekly artistic practice?I do have a penchant for a Midjourney addiction. Sometimes Ill do Midjourney for, like, three days.Do those visual explorations impact the type of music you're making right now?For sure. I was workshopping a digital girl group in there. What I like about AI art is just doing things that I would just never otherwise be able to do. Or I'll do something and I'll be like, OK, what if I totally change the colors?, which is something that normally is very difficult and time-consuming when I'm doing regular art.A lot of people in the K-pop industry have been more embracing of AI tools in the last couple years, like Aespa. Is that stuff interesting to you?Aespa is one of my favorite groups. I think they're kind of underrated for this. Also, if you go deep on their lyrics, sometimes their lyrics are very bizarre and strange. And they'll just be some offhand comment about not succumbing to the algorithm or something. It seems really uncharacteristically advanced and strange for a K-pop group.In your acceptance speech at the TIME event, you praised Holly Herndons Have I Been Trained, a tool to allow artists to opt out of AI training data sets. While its an amazing tool, only a couple of major AI companies have agreed to use it. Do you view part of your impact as trying to persuade these AI companies to adopt better policies or approaches?I would be open to it. The geopolitical undertones of things, I don't quite fully understand them. I'd be hesitant to undercut, or create a situation where legal regulation might come into play that causes us to lose an arms race in a scary way. So I dont think I would call anyone or push hard on that, nor do I necessarily think they listen to me. And I don't think I'd agitate legally for that.But I think anyone who is willing to do that should. Just because I think it really reduces people's emotional pain. I think a lot of people's emotional pain comes from feeling like their work is being used to replace them. So of all the things people could do, if people would just allow people to remove themselves from data sets Because it's going to be such a tiny amount of people anyway. I don't think it would make a meaningful difference at all if 400 people removed their art.There's this dichotomy being propagated now of, theres an AI arms race, we need to be first, versus We need to put up guardrails. How much have you been thinking about that dichotomy?I've been thinking about that quite a lot. Do you know Daniel Schmachtenberger? He's a really good philosopher. Him and my friend Liv Boeree have said some of the coolest things about the idea of autonomous capital [a collection of AIs that make independent financial decisions to influence the economy]. This is my big paranoia. I'm not really scared of some sort of demon AI. But I am scared that everything is in service of making intelligent capital.I'm worried that the AI stuff is being forced into this corporate competition. And it's really pushing the arms race forward. And everyone's focusing on LLMs and diffusion models and visual art and stuff, because it looks less hardcore to be doing more of a DeepMind science-y thing.I'm sort of going on a roundabout path here. But theres a rhetorical trap here where you can be like, Well, if we aren't the best, then China or Russia or some renegade thing could win, and terrorism would be easy. And so we have to have counter AIs that are very good. I find this to be a very dangerous argument. I don't think we should pause or anything, or regulate people a lot. But I do wish there could be some sort of international diplomacy of some kind that is more coherent.Do you consider yourself an accelerationist, or an effective accelerationist?Im probably a centrist, to be honest. If the doomers are here [gestures] and the accelerationists are here, I'm probably in the middle. I don't think we should pause. I just really think we should have better decorum and diplomacy and oversight to each other.If everyone who was a meaningful player in AI had a sense of what everyone else was doing, and there was more cooperationthat doesn't seem that hard. But also, no one seems to have ever achieved that globally, for most things, anyway.There's been so much cool, groundbreaking AI art. There's also been a ton of AI slop. Do you think that is going to be a persistent problem?I think the AI slop is great. I think culturally, it's a good thing that it happened, because one of the things that drove people to start really caring about artists again in 2024 was the AI slop. I think everything happens for a reason.When culturally bad things happen, I think people get very pessimistic, but usually, it's [that] we go two steps forwards, one step backwards. Its a great mediator. So I think we need the slop. And it's kind of cyberpunk.What can you tell me about the album that you're working on now?Most of the album is sort of about me being a bit of a Diogenes about the ills of modernity while still celebrating them. I don't know. I don't want to say too much about it. I want to promise nothing, but in my ideal world, things are coming out within a month or two.Has your music been inspired at all by the people who use Elf.tech to sing as you?Not so much this music. Although I do really like the idea of having a competition with them. Putting together their best work and my best work, and then having everyone choose who gets to be the future Grimes.Do you think youre ahead?I think Im ahead now. In moments, I was shook. There have definitely been moments where I heard things where I got very shook.There's so many musicians now who I feel like have a lot of fear that AI is going to make it really hard for them to earn a living. Do you feel like those fears are founded or unfounded?I think they're somewhat founded. I think they are at times overblown. For example, Spotify being filled with easy listening slop is probably going to happen, and that probably is going to affect people to some extent. And I can see a lot of companies being easily corrupted by this. And just pushing those kinds of playlists, making lots of slop.I think there are some laws against that, but I don't quite understand the legal landscape. But overall, I do think again, it helps preserve the artist, as it were. I think it is probably overall worse for the session musician, and that does make me meaningfully sad. I don't play instruments very well, but I think it's a very good skill to have.When the music stuff gets a tiny bit better, and you can stem things out easily, and you can make edits really easilyI do think that's going to hurt traditional music in a meaningful way. It might even be somewhat of the end of it. I doubt entirely, but as a paid profession, possibly.You told the podcaster Lex Friedman a couple years ago that you love collaborating with other musicians, because a human brain is one of the best tools that you can find. Has working with AI come close to that?Not really. Ive probably made, like, 1000 AI songs, and there's been one legitimately good one and one that's like an accidental masterpiece that is kind of unlistenable, but is very good nonetheless in its complete form.Probably AI, in the short term, creates a bit of a renaissance in terms of what I do [as an] in-the-box music producer. But when it gets good enough, it's a lot easier than relying on other people, especially if I can be like, fix the EQ on this, or prompt very specific things. I think people should just retain the art of creating things and retain the art of knowing things. So the more granular it gets, I think actually, the less sort of evil it is as an attack on the human psyche or the human ability to learn.Overall, I think there's quite a bit of abdication of responsibility around what we are going to do as people's jobs start being taken fairly aggressively. Luckily, there's a massive population drop coming. So maybe everything is just fate and it's gonna work out OK. But I feel like we might get, like, very, very, very good AI across every pillar of art before there aren't any more people to make art.You wrote We Appreciate Power, an ode to AI, seven years ago, way before ChatGPT exploded. How does that song resonate with you in this new era?Honestly, I think it's very ahead of its time. It's kind of pre-e/acc. It's still one of my favorite songs, honestly.How do you feel about the people who take its messageof pledging allegiance to the world's most powerful computerliterally?I used to be very concerned about those people. Now I think those people are great. There's not that many people who are truly in the suicidal death cult. I'm sort of surprised there's not more AI worship already. There will probably be a lot of gods and cults. But also, I do think the death of religion is very bad. I think killing God was a mistake.Why?I understand there's a lot of issues with all the religions previously. But no religion, I think, is having a big impact on cultural problems. Not only because theres a lack of shared morality in a quite meaningful way, but because of all the things religions dolike ritual, like community.Especially having kids. A lot of the coolest people I know who have kids are sort of like weird, neo-tech, Christian-type people. The built-in moral stuff: I now see what it did to me as a child. Now I'm like, I don't know if I would raise my kids religiously, but it's something to think about. Because everyone has a shared morality and there's right and wrong, and there's moral instruction. Without religion, we haven't filled the moral instruction with anything else. We're just like, hey, guess what's good.I was talking to some Gen Z the other day, and she's like, I have a breeding kink. And I'm like, I think you might just want to get married and have kids. That was normal until pretty recently. I think people are pretty spiritually lost, and a lot of people are filling this need for moral authority with politics, which is leading to a lot of chaos, in my opinion. Because it's not just like, who's going to govern the country? People are really seeing it as this is what you believe, and its very important that they maintain these sort of strict moral boundaries, which makes it very hard to have coalition agreement on anything.I dont know. It concerns me. Maybe we need some enlightened AI gods.In terms of neo-tech, Christian-type people, theres been reporting about how an ideology known as the Dissident Right, or NRX, is gaining influence in Silicon Valley and Washington. What do you feel like people should know about that movement?I actually don't know that much about that. I only just learned that it's called NRX a couple days ago, if thats any context, as compared to what people think I might know about it. I also think the not-mainstream right stuff is pretty fractured.I think people think I'm into that, but I just like weird political theory. I like Plato more than any of that, for example. I just like strange ideas. The right is a lot less interesting to me when they're actually in power and less of an ideas chamber.Do you feel like people misunderstand Curtis Yarvin in certain ways? [Yarvin is a right-wing philosopher who has suggested replacing American democracy with a monarchy. Grimes attended his wedding last year.]I have not actually read Curtis Yarvin, so I'm not going to make any statements about that. I think they possibly do, because I've met him. But I just am not familiar enough with his writing to have too deep of a take on it.On a different part of the political spectrum, I know you've interacted with Vitalik Buterin a couple times.Hes a good philosopher king. My ideal situation is philosopher kings, like 12 of them. Vitalik, I think, is a very good philosopher king-type figure.Vitalik has talked a lot about wielding tech as a tool for democracy and against authoritarianism. What do you feel like your relationship is to that mission?I think a lot of the Ethereum-adjacent blockchain stuff actually has way more potential. I feel like a lot of things happen too early. Yes, the NFT situation was a disaster, and the Bored Apes are like a crime against art. When I was talking about my art is dead moment, it was partially around the apes. I was like, How is the worst thing the most valuable thing? It literally makes my soul suffer in a deep way.One of the things we did was pay people out royalties who did Grimes AI using blockchain. If there was some sort of easy blockchain publishing set up and theres automatic splits based on how much you've contributedI think it could be very good for the art economy, and for politics and for a variety of things. It would be a way better way to vote more securely. I think a lot more people would vote if they could vote from home.Another key part of the crypto ecosystem from a few years ago, DAOs, showed a lot of promise, but often just turned into the worst version of capitalism, where the wealthiest token holders could exert so much influence. How did such a utopian vision end up so awry?There's both a lack of design and strategy. This is my issue with accelerationist stuff. If you have no strategy and no groupthink on some of these things, you just end up with social media, [which] could be net good, but it seems like it's net-bad from a psychological perspective and a misinformation perspective, among other things.The informational landscape was troubled already, but in terms of people's mental health, [social media was] definitely like a disaster. Any sort of cognitive security and safety would have just made things so much less destructive. And now we have to go back and take things away from people, which makes them angry, and it's very hard to do. In essence, we've given everyone crack in their pockets.Because blockchain kind of had a spectacular failure, and now probably some evil things are going to happen, [it] might actually end up in a more decent space, because the barrier to entry is so high, a lot more design is going to have to happen, and we're a lot smarter about making that not sh-tty. I don't know. Itll probably still be sh-tty just because of how the world works and human nature.But I feel like someone like Vitalik is a good example of someone who's like, I choose to be not sh-tty, and actually, I'm actually winning. If we can have more people like thateven one at all is just amazing.As much as everyone hates cancel culture, in some ways, it's a better way to police ethics. It always goes a bit too far, and then it's a psychological hazard. But if you can take a couple steps back, it's just a lot harder to do evil things, and ideally you can use social pressure rather than regulation, which might be exceptionally messy.Youve been tweeting a lot lately. What is your relationship to the platform right now?I've actually been mostly off besides a couple days since the end of January or something. It's just where all the cutting-edge news is, and all my friends use it, and the AI stuff. And it's good to keep track of the political stuff. Ultimately, I don't know. I love to debate. I like getting in fights. They hate me less on Twitter than everywhere else.A few weeks ago, you tweeted: "I feel like I was tricked by people pretending to be into critical thought and consequentialism, who are acting like power-hungry warlords." Would you like to expand?Well, I knew there was some warlordism happening. I wasn't a fool about it. I think there was a lot of, I'm a very centrist Republican, and we're gonna fix the FDA, and we're gonna fix microplastics. And I'm like, OK, maybe I don't agree with everything. A lot of this is a mess, but if we're here, there's some really positive thingslet's focus on these things.I don't wanna say too much, because I'm not an American citizen. But coming back to diplomacy and decorum: When people are like, Haha, we won. I'm like, what is the purpose? Don't just be the anti-woke mind virus: Don't just be a d-ck in the other direction.When everything's just memecoins and sh-t rather than just like there are a bunch of bipartisan things that would be so f-cking great that would calm and unite the country. Like education, toxins, sh-tty dyes, the whole health situation. So much about policing, the legal situation.They're not necessarily prioritizing the things that would just make more people happy. The Democrats are terrible about this too, but I just hate when everyone's just like, Yeah, we won and you suck. Isn't leadership about uniting everybody?I don't know. I feel like we have a lot of generals and not a lot of philosopher kings, which would be the ideal situation. Just like, Lee Kuan Yew-types. I just want people to come out here and throw everything at the kids and throw everything at education. You don't need to be on either side to do things like that.There were a lot of reactions online when you tweeted about your son Xs appearance in the Oval Office. What was your reaction to that moment?It was like, "Grimes slams," "Grimes speaks out." It's like, OK, it was a reply. But I would really like people to stop posting images of my kid everywhere. I think fame is something you should consent to. Obviously, things will just be what they are. But I would really, really appreciate that. I can only ask, so I'm just asking.[On Feb. 11, Grimeswho shares three children with Elon Muskresponded to her son appearing before press at the White House with the tweet, He should not be in public like this. Several days after this Feb. 14 interview, Grimes tweeted directly at Musk, asking him to plz respond about our childs medical crisis. I am sorry to do this publicly but it is no longer acceptable to ignore this situation. She later deleted the tweet, and a representative declined a request for a follow-up conversation.]Do you feel like America's leaders are thinking about AI and its development in the right way?Whatever they're truly thinking, we're probably not allowed to know. I don't have a ton of policy opinions about it. I wish there could be some more incentives for things that are more constructive immediately: medicine, education, making the legal process less expensive. Its crazy that, in general, if someone has more money, its significantly more likely they will win. They can just make things go on for a long time, and the courts are super backed up.What does competent leadership look like to you?The way the U.S. government works and the U.S. Constitution works, and Congress and the Senate, things are supposed to be more coalitional. Especially in terms of international relationsI know it's much easier said than donebut there just could be some better diplomacy and strategy.I just feel like everyone's kind of acting like a baby. And I think there's reasons for this, but definitely, the media and social media are stoking a lot of hysteria, and then it's very hard for anyone to make rational decisions. I don't want to make too many statements. I'm not an American citizen. These are broad statements with no detail.What's your relationship to your fan base right now? It seems a bit fractured.Just the Reddit. Everyone else is fine. Honestly, the angrier they get, the more my streaming goes up. So I suppose it's fine, but I would definitely appreciate a less toxic vibe in the fan base.But, you know, it is what it is. That's where I have to rush music out: they always chill out when there's music. I just need to give them some art.I think when people are upset, it usually is actually coming from the right place. I won't go into some of the conspiracy theories, but it's insane what some of the things that people think. And I cannot correct them constantly because they become a giant press cycle whenever you correct them, and then the press are like,Grimes responds to allegations of whatever they think I wish to do.So I just gotta put out art. I can't begrudge people wanting the world to be better. I do think social media really incentivizes people worrying that other people are evil. And in general, I think everyone across the board is worrying too much that other people are evil, and probably only like 10% of people are evil.Do you worry that youre evil?I think its extremely unlikely. If Im evil, its probably because we're in a game, and I'm an AI that was developed to screw things up. I'm not consciously aware of it.This profile is published as a part of TIMEs TIME100 Impact Awards initiative, which recognizes leaders from across the world who are driving change in their communities. The most recent TIME100 Impact Awards ceremony was held on Feb. 10 in Dubai.

Rumor mill: Team Red will reveal tech specs, pricing, and release date information for the Radeon RX 9070 graphics cards on Friday. We already have enough leaked details to get a rough estimate of their performance. However, VideoCardz claims to have acquired the company's official benchmark charts, which show performance gains in 20 games compared to the 7900 GRE. VideoCardz says that AMD expects its upcoming Radeon RX 9070 XT graphics card to outperform the 7900 GRE by about 42 percent in a mixture of raster and ray tracing 4K workloads. If the leaked internal benchmarks prove accurate, the 9070 XT and standard 9070 could trade blows with Nvidia's RTX 5070 Ti and 5070 if the price is right.The report indicates that AMD compared its upcoming GPUs to models from prior generations in over 30 games. The tests, pictured below, utilized ultra or maximum graphics settings without upscaling or frame generation, contrasting starkly with Nvidia's methodology.It's unclear why AMD chose the China-only RX 7900 GRE for comparison, but it might be because it has the same amount of VRAM as the 9070 family. Against the 6900 XT, the 9070 XT's average performance advantage grows to 51 percent. Meanwhile, the standard 9070 beats the 7900 GRE by around 20 percent and outperforms the 6800 XT by 38 percent in 4K.The benchmarked titles include games with hardware-accelerated ray tracing, such as Cyberpunk 2077 and Star Wars Outlaws, and raster-only titles like God of War Ragnark and Starfield. Team Red also tested Cyberpunk and F1 24 with and without RT.The new GPUs exhibit more significant gains in ray tracing than in raster performance. The RX 9070 outpaces the 7900 GRE by between four and 28 percent in raster, but the lead grows to 38 percent in RT. Similarly, the 9070 XT beats the same older card by 23 to 46 percent in raster and up to 68 percent in RT. // Related StoriesClick to enlargeVideoCardz reached out to AMD, which said that it hadn't acquired RTX 5070 Ti samples for direct comparisons with Nvidia. However, a Redditor attempted to approximate one by lining AMD's averages from six games up against prior benchmarks for several of Team Green's GPUs.Please take the results with a grain of salt. They don't incorporate FSR 4 a critical improvement exclusive to RX 9000 but appear optimistic for AMD. Although the 9070 XT might not match the RTX 5070 Ti in ray tracing performance, it likely outpaces every prior AMD card and matches the 5070 Ti in raster. The standard 9070 might resemble the RTX 3090's raster performance and should almost reach the 7900 XTX in RT.Pricing is the most crucial element, but a recent leak suggests that the company's two upcoming GPUs could land between $600 and $700. They should launch early next month, likely butting heads with Nvidia's standard RTX 5070. Detailed performance metrics for the $549 mid-range card remain unclear.

Even with all the options audiences have, Hulu remains a great platform for streaming some of the best anime in the medium. Complemented by a library of certified classics and contemporary hits, fans will be well catered to. The streamers selection spans every genre viewers could want, from high-octane action to romance.For those not already subscribed, the Disney Bundle is worth checking out in addition to Hulus standalone offerings. With it, customers get Disney+, ESPN+, and Hulus ad-based tier. This package nets fans all the Star Wars, Marvel Studios, National Geographic, and sports content they want in a streamlined fashion.Recommended VideosFor prospective fans who might feel overwhelmed, we also have a guide on the best anime available on Netflix to make the most of their options. Plus, checRecently added to HuluBoruto: Naruto Next Generationstv-142017BLUE LOCKtv-142022Dr. STONEtv-142019TRIGUNtv-141998Related

Table of ContentsTable of ContentsHow to watch Brighton vs. BournemouthWatch Brighton vs. Bournemouth on FuboHow to watch Brighton vs. Bournemouth from abroad with a VPNTuesdays Premier League action heads to East Sussex as Brighton (10-10-6) hosts Bournemouth (12-7-7) at American Express Stadium. This is the second meeting of the Premier League season between the two squads. Brighton edged out a 2-1 victory over Bournemouth on November 23. Entering Wednesdays match, Bournemouth is in sixth place with 43 points, while Brighton sits in ninth with 40 points.Brighton is on a three-game winning streak in all competitions, with their most recent win being a 4-0 dominating performance over Southampton. Meanwhile, Bournemouth fell 1-0 to Wolverhampton in their last match. Bournemouth remains on the outside looking in for UEFA Champions League qualifying. A win on Wednesday could put the Cherries into the top four.Recommended VideosFind out how to watch Wednesdays match between Brighton and Bournemouth, including the start time, channel, and streaming information. Read more of our soccer coverage in Digital Trends Premier League guide.RelatedHappy memories against Bournemouth pic.twitter.com/gYgZ7QJuz9 Brighton & Hove Albion (@OfficialBHAFC) February 24, 2025The match between Brighton and Bournemouth begins at 2:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday, February 25, 2025. will stream the game. If you cant watch live, the game will be available on demand shortly after the final whistle.Subscribers can choose between Premium at $8 per month and Premium Plus at $14 per month. Both plans carry the Premier League, so purchase whatever plan fits into your budget. Regardless of the plan,read our guide on how to set up your TV to watch the Premier League. This is a must-read for soccer fans to create the optimal viewing experience.Phil Nickinson / Digital TrendsWith the game on Peacock,Fubo subscribers will not find the game on the service. They must have a Peacock subscription to watch the game. However, Fubo customers can still watch the Premier League when the games are on channels like NBC and USA Network.Derek Malcolm / Digital TrendsWhen browsing, use a VPN to add an extra layer of protection. VPNs, or virtual private networks, will help shield your online activity from cybercriminals. This comes into play when using foreign or public Wi-Fi. One of the best VPNs on the market, NordVPN, a service that fights to make your connection safe. If NordVPN isnt for you, thenrequest a 30-day money-back guarantee.Editors Recommendations

Shares of Chegg dropped after the company said its conducting a business review and exploring alternatives such as selling the company or taking it private as it continues to lose subscribers to artificial-intelligence-enabled rivals..

Good news COVID shots protect kids from long COVIDand dont cause sudden death Researchers recommend kids stay up to date on the COVID vaccines. Beth Mole Feb 24, 2025 6:57 pm | 19 A 13-year-old celebrates getting the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in Hartford, Connecticut, on May 13, 2021. Credit: Getty | JOSEPH PREZIOSO A 13-year-old celebrates getting the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in Hartford, Connecticut, on May 13, 2021. Credit: Getty | JOSEPH PREZIOSO Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreCOVID-19 vaccines cut the risk of long COVID by between 5773 percent in kids and teens, according to a study published today in JAMA Network Open. And there's more good news:A second study published today in the journal offered more data that the now-annual shots are not linked to sudden cardiac arrest or sudden cardiac death in young athletesa claim that gained traction on social media and among anti-vaccine groups during the acute phase of the pandemic.Together, the studies bolster current recommendations that children and teens should stay up to date on their COVID-19 vaccines, which are estimated to have prevented more than 3 million deaths and more than 18 million hospitalizations in the first two years of their use. So far, the recommendations for kids have largely gone unheeded; only 14 percent of children aged 5 to 17 are up to date on their 20242025 COVID shot. Surveys suggest that parents largely think the vaccines are unnecessary, given that most children only have mild COVID infections.Still, not all infections are mild, and even mild cases can lead to long COVID, according to the authors of the first study. An estimated 1 percent to 3 percent of children infected with SARS-CoV-2 will develop long COVID, defined as having symptoms that continue or develop four or more weeks after the initial phase of infection. With tens of millions of kids getting infected with the pandemic virus, a large number of them are at risk of developing the condition.The finding that the vaccines substantially reduce the risk of long COVID in kids echoes findings seen in studies on adults. However, studies on children have been limited and inconsistent.For the new study, led by researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, kids from Florida, Texas, Arizona, and Utah, all aged between 5 and 17, were followed between December 2021 and March 2023. They had no history of SARS-CoV-2 infections before the study and were tested for the new infections via weekly nasal swabs. In all, 622 kids tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 during the trial and were eligible to be in the analysis. Of the 622, 28 developed long COVID, 12 of whom (43 percent) were unvaccinated, and 594 acted as controls, 136 of whom (23 percent) were unvaccinated.Benefits and a non-existent riskUsing an adjusted odds ratio, the researchers found that vaccination reduced the likelihood of developing long COVID with one or more symptoms by 57 percent, and reduced the likelihood of developing long COVID with two or more symptoms by 73 percent. Vaccination prior to infection was also linked to a 75 percent reduction in risk of developing long COVID that impacted day-to-day functioning. The authors note that the estimates of protection are likely underestimates because the calculations do not account for the fact that vaccination prevented some children from getting infected in the first place."Our findings suggest that children should stay up to date with current COVID-19 vaccination recommendations as vaccination not only protects against severe COVID-19 illness but also protects against [long Covid]," the authors conclude.In a second short report in JAMA Network Open, researchers helped dispel concern that the vaccines could cause sudden cardiac arrest or sudden cardiac death in young athletes. This is an unproven claim that was fueled by anti-vaccine advocates amid the pandemic, including the new US Health Secretary and long-time anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.While previous analyses have failed to find a link between COVID-19 vaccines and sudden cardiac deaths, the new study took a broader approach. The study, led by researchers at the University of Washington, looked at whether the number of sudden cardiac arrests (SCA) and sudden cardiac deaths (SCD) among young athletes changed at all during the pandemic (20202022) compared with prior years (20172019). The researchers drew records from the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research. They also collected medical records and autopsy reports on cases among competitive athletes from the youth, middle school, high school, club, college, or professional levels who experienced sudden cardiac arrest or death at any time.In all, there were 387 cases, with no statistically significant difference in the number of cases in the years prior to the pandemic (203) compared with those during the pandemic (184)."This cohort study found no increase in SCA/SCD in young competitive athletes in the US during the COVID-19 pandemic, suggesting that reports asserting otherwise were overestimating the cardiovascular risk of COVID-19 infection, vaccination, and myocarditis," the authors conclude.Beth MoleSenior Health ReporterBeth MoleSenior Health Reporter Beth is Ars Technicas Senior Health Reporter. Beth has a Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and attended the Science Communication program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She specializes in covering infectious diseases, public health, and microbes. 19 Comments

OPSEC FAILURE OF THE YEAR How North Korea pulled off a $1.5 billion crypto heistthe biggest in history Attack on Bybit didn't hack infrastructure or exploit smart contract code. So how did it work? Dan Goodin Feb 24, 2025 6:41 pm | 12 An ethereum coin. Credit: CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images An ethereum coin. Credit: CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreThe cryptocurrency industry and those responsible for securing it are still in shock following Fridays heist, likely by North Korea, that drained $1.5 billion from Dubai-based exchange Bybit, making the theft by far the biggest ever in digital asset history.Bybit officials disclosed the theft of more than 400,000 ethereum and staked ethereum coins just hours after it occurred. The notification said the digital loot had been stored in a Multisig Cold Wallet when, somehow, it was transferred to one of the exchanges hot wallets. From there, the cryptocurrency was transferred out of Bybit altogether and into wallets controlled by the unknown attackers.This wallet is too hot, this one is too coldResearchers for blockchain analysis firm Elliptic, among others, said over the weekend that the techniques and flow of the subsequent laundering of the funds bear the signature of threat actors working on behalf of North Korea. The revelation comes as little surprise since the isolated nation has long maintained a thriving cryptocurrency theft racket, in large part to pay for its weapons of mass destruction program.Multisig cold wallets, also known as multisig safes, are among the gold standards for securing large sums of cryptocurrency. More shortly about how the threat actors cleared this tall hurdle. First, a little about cold wallets and multisig cold wallets and how they secure cryptocurrency against theft.Wallets are accounts that use strong encryption to store bitcoin, ethereum, or any other form of cryptocurrency. Often, these wallets can be accessed online, making them useful for sending or receiving funds from other Internet-connected wallets. Over the past decade, these so-called hot wallets have been drained of digital coins supposedly worth billions, if not trillions, of dollars. Typically, these attacks have resulted from the thieves somehow obtaining the private key and emptying the wallet before the owner even knows the key has been compromised.Defenders soon turned to cold wallets. These accounts arent directly accessible to the Internet, so even if a would-be thief manages to obtain the private key securing it, theres no way to access it and transfer the currency elsewhere. Multisig cold wallets go a step further. In much the same way that nuclear arms systems are designed to require two or more authorized people to successfully authenticate themselves before a missile can be launched, multisig wallets need the digital signatures of two or more authorized people before assets can be accessed.Bybit was largely following best practices by storing only as much currency as needed for day-to-day activity in warm and hot wallets, and keeping the rest in the multisig cold wallets. Transferring funds out of cold wallets required coordinated approval from multiple high-level employees of the exchange.Immediate speculation was that somehow the drained cold wallet, or the infrastructure hosting itprovided by a company called Safehad been somehow compromised. This theory was plausible enough since, these sorts of thefts are usually accomplished by exploiting vulnerabilities in the code enforcing cryptocurrency smart contracts or the infrastructure hosting them. The speculation was also consistent with accounts from Bybit employees that, according to Safe, the user cold wallet interfaces for the affected Bybit employees displayed the correct-appearing transaction information yet a malicious transaction that had all valid signatures was executed onchain. (Safe also paused its Safe{Wallet} services following the attack and, as this story went live on Ars, had begun a phased rollout to restore them.)This theory was ruled out after a subsequent investigation by Safe found no signs of unauthorized access to its infrastructure, no compromises of other Safe wallets, and no obvious vulnerabilities in the Safe codebase. As investigators continued to dig in, they finally settled on the true cause. Bybit ultimately said that the fraudulent transaction was manipulated by a sophisticated attack that altered the smart contract logic and masked the signing interface, enabling the attacker to gain control of the ETH Cold Wallet.Shattering assumptionsWhat that means is that multiple systems inside Bybit had been hacked in a way that allowed the attackers to manipulate the Safe wallet UI on the devices of each person required to approve the transfer. That revelation, in turn, has touched off something of a eureka moment for many in the industry.The Bybit hack has shattered long-held assumptions about crypto security, Dikla Barda, Roman Ziakin, and Oded Vanunu, researchers at security firm Check Point, wrote Sunday. No matter how strong your smart contract logic or multisig protections are, the human element remains the weakest link. This attack proves that UI manipulation and social engineering can bypass even the most secure wallets.Its still unclear how the attackers managed to hack the UIs of multiple Bybit employees whose signatures were required for the funds to be moved out of cold storage, but as researchers Dan Guido, Benjamin Samuels, and Anish Naik of security firm Trail of Bits noted, hackers working on behalf of the North Korean government have long deployed sophisticated malware tools that:Operate seamlessly across Windows, MacOS, and various wallet interfacesShow minimal signs of compromise while maintaining persistenceFunction as backdoors to execute arbitrary commandsDownload and execute additional malicious payloadsManipulate what users see in their interfacesThese hackers have also been long known for their relentless social engineering prowess. They often spend weeks or months building online personas that ultimately win the trust of targets. That persistence likely allowed the thieves who hit Bybit to somehow tamper with the UIs of each company employee whose digital imprimatur was required to move the funds out of cold storageand ultimately into wallets the hackers controlledall at breakneck speed.As both Check Point and Trail of Bits point out, the lessons learned here bring cryptocurrency security back to some of the most basic elements such as segmenting internal networks, adopting defense-in-depth practices that include multiple, overlapping controls for detecting and preventing sophisticated attacks, and preparation for scenarios precisely like this one.Dan GoodinSenior Security EditorDan GoodinSenior Security Editor Dan Goodin is Senior Security Editor at Ars Technica, where he oversees coverage of malware, computer espionage, botnets, hardware hacking, encryption, and passwords. In his spare time, he enjoys gardening, cooking, and following the independent music scene. Dan is based in San Francisco. Follow him at here on Mastodon and here on Bluesky. Contact him on Signal at DanArs.82. 12 Comments

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said he supports efforts to make the government more efficient."The government is inefficient, not very competent, and it needs a lot of work," Dimon said.Dimon also said the US has become a "highly bureaucratic, litigious, over-regulated society."JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said he has a "wait-and-see attitude" regarding the Trump administration and the White House DOGE office, but he's hopeful DOGE will succeed."More effective government more efficient government isn't bad. It's actually a good thing," Dimon said in an interview with CNBC on Monday during JPMorgan's Global Leveraged Finance Conference in Miami.When asked about how DOGE, tariffs, and President Donald Trump's slew of executive orders could impact the economy, Dimon said it's too soon to say and will depend on how the changes are implemented.But in general, he said he supports efforts to make the government more efficient and effective."The government is inefficient, not very competent, and it needs a lot of work," he said. "It's not just waste and fraud, it's outcomes. Why are we spending the money on these things? Are we getting what we deserve? What should we change? I think doing that needs to be done."DOGE aims to reduce government spending and waste and improve efficiency. Much of its early efforts have focused on cutting the federal workforce and targeting specific federal agencies, like USAID."I'm hoping it's quite successful," he said of DOGE.Dimon has previously had a rocky relationship with Elon Musk, a special government employee closely associated with DOGE, though the two have appeared to be on better terms over the past year. Dimon said last month he and Musk "hugged it out" and that the billionaires have settled some of their differences.Dimon has also said he supported the idea of a department of government efficiency and that he'd love to be helpful to DOGE if he can.In the CNBC interview on Monday Dimon also expressed support for the Trump administration's deregulation stance, saying the US is a"We have become a highly bureaucratic, litigious, over-regulated society, and it's bad," he said, adding that he's not opposed to all regulations but that they've gotten "excessive."After the election in November, Dimon said bankers were "dancing in the street" at the prospect of Trump slashing regulation.On Monday he said changes to regulations could free up capital to grow the economy and "free the banks to what they're supposed to do.""We have the best natural system in the word," he said. "Let's keep it that way. Let's not hamstrung it."

FBI agent Loretta Bush participated in Netflix's new docuseries "American Murder: Gabby Petito."Bush's appearance on the docuseries went viral when she got visibly choked up talking about her job.Viewers, and particularly lesbian viewers, were immediately captivated by Bush. Here's what to know.Netflix's latest true-crime docuseries "American Murder: Gabby Petito" digs deeper into the story of the 22-year-old aspiring travel influencer who was killed by her fianc, Brian Laundrie, while on a cross-country road trip in 2021.As the many true crime fans who have long followed the Petito case know, it's a bleak and upsetting story. But viewers have already found light in the darkest of places: by thirsting after FBI agent Loretta Bush, who was featured in the doc.Bush works out of the bureau's Tampa division, which covers 18 counties in central and southwest Florida, including where Petito and Laundrie lived with Laundrie's parents in North Port, Florida. She appears toward the end of the second episode of the three-part series, at the point when Petito's 2021 disappearance in Wyoming became a federal investigation.The first shot of Bush instantly establishes that she's, quite frankly, cool as hell: She strides across the screen wearing black sunglasses with her badge on her hip and tattooed arms visible. The first words out of her mouth are about how she takes her job in law enforcement very seriously and how important it is to her to get closure for victims' families. Loretta Bush, ladies and gentlemen. Netflix If the dozens of thirsty TikTok videos and hundreds of comments on them are any indication, it was love at first sight for many viewers. Bush is the subject of fancam edits set to Ethel Cain's "Crush" and Usher's "Hey Daddy (Daddy's Home)," where commenters are talking about getting lost in her blue eyes and how they hope she doesn't end up getting fired by Elon Musk and DOGE."I felt so bad falling in love with Loretta while watching this sad documentary but OH MY GAWD ," one commenter wrote.There's a whole subgenre of self-identified straight women who joke that they're now questioning their sexuality because of their attraction to Bush.Some are also campaigning for Bush to get her own Netflix show. About what? Anything, really; her newfound legion of fans just wants to see more of her.It's not all about physical attraction. Many of the comments also reference a moment near the end of the docuseries in which Bush gets visibly choked up talking about her work on missing persons cases and how many of them remain unsolved despite the outsized attention to Petito's case in particular."This story is unique, but I will tell you that there are so many other people out there missing and they are important too. My work is important. Victims' lives are important," Bush says in her final appearance in the docuseries. Loretta Bush got choked up talking about her work. Netflix Bush herself doesn't appear to have publicly available social media profiles, at least not any that her dedicated fans have been able to track down.Several commenters on TikTok have identified themselves as friends of Bush's in real life. They say that Bush isn't on social media but that she's aware of her newfound viral fame and they've been sharing all the videos with her. They also said that Bush is married. (Netflix declined Business Insider's requests for comment for more information on Bush.)Another person who knows about Bush's TikTok fame agrees that she's a gem: Petito's father, Joe Petito."I told her that she is a TikTok sensation. She really is such an amazing person. We love her," Joe Petito commented on a video about Bush.