The United States and the European Union announced the first-ever broad artificial intelligence agreement between them, and the A.I. text generator ChatGPT was reported to have passed four law school exams with an average grade of C+ and a Wharton business exam with a grade of B/B-.1 2 “Rapid advancements in AI technology have made it clear that the time to act is now to ensure that AI is used in ways that are safe, ethical, and beneficial for society,” wrote ChatGPT as part of an editorial that was published in the New York Times.3 A California representative introduced a ChatGPT-written resolution about A.I., and a Massachusetts state senator introduced a ChatGPT-penned bill that would regulate similar programs.4 5 The chatbot was banned by several universities in India, Sciences Po in France, and the journal Science, and A.I.-written articles published on CNET were found to have been heavily plagiarized from human sources.6 7 8 9 BuzzFeed announced that it would use A.I. to help create content, and its stock jumped more than 150 percent.10 Union Pacific, one of the railroads whose workers were forced by Congress to accept a contract with no paid sick days, reported record earnings.11 Prosecutors asked for tighter bail restrictions on Sam Bankman-Fried after accusing him of trying to contact a witness in his criminal case, and FTX, Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency exchange, acknowledged “fraud, dishonesty, incompetence, misconduct, mismanagement, and irregularity.”12 13 Peaceful protesters took to the streets across the nation after body-cam footage was released of the death of Tyre Nichols, an unarmed black man, at the hands of the Memphis police.14 Supporters of Taylor Swift demonstrated at the U.S. Capitol as officials held a hearing on the business practices of Ticketmaster (Live Nation Entertainment), during which three senators and an antitrust expert quoted the pop star’s lyrics.15 “If they were pandering toward me,” said a Swift fan, “it completely worked.”
North Korea, which during the first two years of the pandemic claimed to have zero cases of COVID-19, announced a five-day lockdown in Pyongyang due to an increase in “recurrent flu.”16 Nearly 80 percent of China’s population was reported to have gotten the coronavirus since the lifting of zero-COVID restrictions in early December, as had four of the five accused 9/11 plotters imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay.17 18 After an Israeli raid killed nine Palestinians in the West Bank, seven people were killed outside a synagogue by a Palestinian.19 20 Israeli settlers carried out 144 attacks against Palestinians or their property, and a 13-year-old Palestinian boy shot a father and son in East Jerusalem.21 22 It was reported that a Virginia elementary school had been warned three times that a first grader who shot a teacher was carrying a gun, and police officers in Florida stopped an armed kindergartener.23 24 It was reported that King Charles’s coronation, during which he will wear nearly $4 billion worth of jewelry, will emphasize the cost-of-living crisis, and the Crown Estate sued Twitter over unpaid rent for the site’s United Kingdom headquarters.25 26 27 A Colorado representative settled a lawsuit from a former aide who claimed that the congressman allowed his son to live in the basement of the Capitol.28 A church in Jacksonville, Florida, was forcing parishioners to sign an anti-LGBTQ+ statement to remain in the congregation, and Pope Francis said that homosexuality was a sin but not a crime.29 30 In Fargo, a topless woman broke into a church and destroyed a statue of Jesus, and a man who broke into St. Paul’s Free Lutheran Church on New Year’s Day to watch pornography was charged with two counts of felony burglary.31 32 “I had the idea five months ago. People interpreted it in their own way,” said a Brazilian man reported to have faked his death to see who would show up to his funeral.33
A Pennsylvania man was charged for threatening to eat a sheriff.34 An Oregonian accused of biting a senior citizen’s ear off was banned from public transit, and an autopsy revealed that a dementia resident at a senior care home died after ingesting cleaning fluid, and not, as the home alleged, from eating Flamin’ Hot Cheetos in the middle of the night.35 36 The state of Missouri argued that the fetus carried by a woman who died in a work zone vehicle crash was also a state employee.37 The Justice Department found that Louisiana violates the Constitution by keeping over a quarter of its incarcerated people past their mandated release dates, and a city in Ohio that had accidentally collected extra income tax from its residents since 1996 announced that it would not return the money.38 39 In Florida, teachers packed up their classroom libraries to comply with a “parental rights” law mandating that all books be preapproved, and in Texas, the mother of a high schooler was reportedly arrested for posing as a student so that she could watch her daughter fight with another student.40 41 A high school quarterback who lost a scholarship to Florida after saying the n-word on video received offers to play at two HBCUs, and a group of museums in the United Kingdom announced that they would avoid the term “mummy” in favor of “mummified remains.”42 43 Marie Kondo admitted that her home is messy now that she has three children.44 —Jon Edelman
