Flagship

Google unveils ChatGPT rival

Google released its artificial intelligence model Gemini, which it hopes will challenge OpenAI’s ChatGPT. We don’t know how its claims of Gemini outperforming ChatGPT will translate to real-world capability, Semafor’s Reed Albergotti said, but it shows Google can build high-end AI “completely in-house.” Crucially Gemini is “multimodal” — trained on text, audio, and video — from the start, rather than having those capabilities bolted on later. Not everyone was impressed: Google’s shares fell, and The Information said the company was lagging behind OpenAI. The world is scrambling to keep up with AI: The European Union is in “crunch talks” to regulate the technology, while the chipmaker AMD rolled out its latest AI chip to rival Nvidia’s market-dominant models.

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BAT’s dying cigarette brands

British American Tobacco said its smoking business in the U.S. is dying out. It declared that its cigarette brands — including Lucky Strike, Camel, and Pall Mall — can only expect to remain profitable for 30 years, rather than indefinitely, and booked a $31 billion charge. Demand for tobacco has dropped in recent years, as smokers quit, or turn to less deadly alternatives such as vaping. BAT is attempting to boost its own vape sales, hoping to make 50% of its revenue from “non-combustible” products by 2035. The writedown is the first time a tobacco firm has acknowledged the changing future of smoking, the BBC reported: BAT’s chief executive said the move was “accounting catching up with reality.”

GOP blocks Ukraine aid bill

U.S. Senate Republicans blocked a Ukraine aid bill, with its prospects in doubt following controversial remarks by Donald Trump. Republicans have tied aid for Ukraine to increased funding for U.S. border security, and President Joe Biden said his administration was willing to compromise over the issues. The talks have been complicated, however, by Trump saying he would act like a “dictator” to crack down on migrants were he to return to the Oval Office, “heightening wariness among Senate Democrats about endorsing broad new powers he could wield as president,” Semafor’s Joseph Zeballos-Roig reported. The deadlock raised fears of aid to Kyiv running dry, with the European Union also locked in its own battles over Ukraine funding.

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UN chief calls for Gaza ceasefire

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres invoked a rarely used article of the U.N. Charter to call a Security Council meeting on Gaza. The move, which involved pressing for a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire and which could lead to sanctions or the deployment of an international force, is likely to be blocked by Washington. A ceasefire might be in Israel’s own interest, the political scientist Robert Pape wrote in Foreign Affairs: The bombing campaign in Gaza, “judged purely in strategic terms … is doomed to failure,” he said, because it is increasing rather than reducing support for Hamas. The move came as investigations by Reuters and AFP blamed Israel for shelling in Lebanon that killed a Reuters reporter and wounded two AFP journalists soon after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.

Global trade deals in trouble

Tense talks between European and Chinese leaders underlined fears of a global shift away from promoting trade. China’s Xi Jinping insisted in talks with European Union officials that Beijing wanted to be a “trusted partner” on trade, but Brussels has in recent months outlined a “de-risking” strategy, while Italy officially informed China this week it was withdrawing from the Belt and Road infrastructure program. Other trade deals are also at risk: Proposed EU agreements with South America and Australia have suffered setbacks, while the U.S. slowed plans to roll out an Asia-Pacific pact, which was already criticized as insufficiently ambitious.

Giant US wind farm opens

The U.S.’s first utility-scale offshore wind farm began operating. The facility near New York will power the equivalent of around 70,000 homes, and will soon be followed by another one — five times larger — near Massachusetts. Its opening marked some rare good news in the offshore wind industry: Several projects in the U.S. have been canceled, and the U.K. held a recent auction in which no bids were successful, trends blamed on rising costs and supply chain disruptions. Overall, wind power is far off track to meet a global goal to triple renewable generation capacity by 2030: BloombergNEF analysts project that to achieve the overall target, wind capacity must increase fourfold by 2030, but will likely only double.

Venezuela cracks down on critics

Venezuela’s attorney general ordered the arrests of major opposition figures as well as the campaign staffers of presidential candidate Maria Corina Machado. According to authorities, the warrants were issued over their attempts to conspire against the government’s much-questioned referendum last weekend to annex two-thirds of neighboring Guyana. The vote and subsequent crackdown risk the reimposition of U.S. sanctions — lifted in exchange for political liberalization — on Venezuela’s beleaguered oil industry. It could also bolster support for the opposition, who analysts believe would trounce the Maduro regime in fair elections. “They are not going to stop us,” Machado said. “On the contrary, this gives us more strength.”

Last weekend, we ran our inaugural Best of 2023 coverage. But more is coming!

Send in your suggestions for the best books, TV, movies, podcasts, music, and video games of the year and we’ll feature the most-recommended ideas.

Just hit reply, or email flagship@semafor.com.

W Africa security pact crumbles

Chad and Mauritania, the last remaining members of a West African alliance set up to fight Islamist militias, said they would dissolve the union. Recent coups across the Sahel region have weakened military pacts — including with the U.S. and France — set up almost a decade ago to fight insurgencies that have killed thousands and displaced millions. The dissolution of the alliance has raised fears that coup leaders will turn to Russia, which has been accused of propping up authoritarian regimes in Africa in exchange for economic concessions, the Associated Press reported.

Weeds gain Roundup resistance

Glyphosate, the world’s most widely used weedkiller, is becoming less effective as weeds develop resistance to it. Marketed as “Roundup,” glyphosate is used in combination with genetically modified crops designed to be resistant to it, so it only kills the weeds around those crops. But new research shows that the weeds it is intended to kill are becoming resistant to Roundup as well, for exactly the same reason bacteria become resistant to antibiotics: Those weeds which survive the treatment are the ones that reproduce, meaning that genes which promote resistance to it tend to spread. The research showed that resistance increased in just two years, and glyphosate became up to 30% less effective within a decade.

POTY goes to Swift

Time magazine named Taylor Swift its Person of the Year. The last 12 months have cemented Swift’s already obvious cultural dominance. Her Eras Tour became the first to sell $1 billion worth of tickets, her fans crashed the Ticketmaster site, and last week she became the first living artist to have five of the top 10 Billboard albums at once. Time’s award has, since 1927, gone to the person who has most influenced the world that year; usually a politician, with 14 U.S. presidents, Joseph Stalin, and Adolf Hitler among the recipients. “If you’re skeptical, consider it: How many conversations did you have about Taylor Swift this year? How many times did you see a photo of her while scrolling on your phone?” Time wrote.

• Russian President Vladimir Putin is due to meet with his Iranian counterpart in Moscow, after talks with Emirati and Saudi leaders in the Gulf during a rare trip abroad.
• Hanukkah begins.
• World War II: From the Frontlines, a new documentary series, is released on Netflix.

The number of letters sent to Lapland’s Santa Claus Village every day in December. The Finnish village promotes itself as the true home of Father Christmas, and children worldwide write to him there, listing gifts and claiming to have been good all year. Lapland expects record numbers of tourists this year: Visitor numbers have rebounded since the pandemic, and the popularity of the Frozen franchise — which draws on the region’s Indigenous Sami culture — and recent successful TV series have brought extra attention, The Times of London reported. New flight connections from Vienna, Madrid, and Berlin are expected to boost numbers. “We call this our super-winter,” a Finnish airline executive said, predicting a 20% rise on last year.

A new video game takes players on a journey through the Scottish Highlands. The region’s distinctive landscape is brought to life through a dreamy watercolor aesthetic in A Highland Song, with The Guardian’s Keza MacDonald describing the experience as a “magical-realist trek.” Place is everything in this story about Moira, a teenage runaway trying to reach her Uncle Hamish’s lighthouse. “Scotland isn’t set-dressing here, it is the game,” MacDonald wrote. “The contours of the peaks, the soundtrack comprised of folk music, wind and weather, the wildlife, the mystical quality of the light, Moira’s natural talent for compound swearing.”

January 14-19, 2024 | Switzerland

Semafor will be on the ground at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, covering what’s happening on the main stages and lifting the curtain on what’s happening behind them.

Sign up to receive our pop-up newsletter: Semafor Davos (and if you’re flying to Zurich let us know so we can invite you to one of Semafor’s private convenings).

• Russia and China are getting closer than ever, new data from Gallup shows.
• India dominated Wikipedia in 2023, showcasing the growing prominence of the country’s English-speaking population.
• COP28 has become an open-air bazaar for carbon offsets, but a long-sought agreement on global trading rules remains “a total mess.”